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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698439">Normal's Gone for Good</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudymagnolia/pseuds/cloudymagnolia'>cloudymagnolia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Epilogue (Prologue) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But mostly fluff, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Post-Kingdom Hearts II, Pre-Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, Riku Loves Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Sora Loves Riku (Kingdom Hearts), assuming i still know what canon is, consensual underage grinding, filling out everyone's family with some ocs, i cannot reiterate enough how much fluff there is, mickey donald and goofy are in it for like a second, spunky!kairi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:41:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,993</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudymagnolia/pseuds/cloudymagnolia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stupidly, Sora had thought he'd come home to Destiny Islands  and everything would be normal. That he'd slip back into his life like he hadn't disappeared for a year, hadn't vanished without a trace, hadn't left his parents broken.</p><p>He learns he's wrong.<br/>---<br/>Riku, for his part, doesn't think being back home on the Islands  will make it any harder to ignore his feelings for Sora.</p><p>He learns he's wrong, too.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Epilogue (Prologue) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888540</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. In Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Helloooooooo, friends! I last dipped into this fandom like... 13 years ago? Maybe? And then Covid happened and I thought, "Sure, I can watch a KHIII play-through on Youtube" and HERE WE ARE. </p><p>I started writing this fic more than 10 years ago. It started as an exercise in giving Destiny Islands the world-building it deserved. Then it became a sort of ventfic about how much it sucks to be at the stage of teenagerdom where you suddenly realize your parents aren't happy. </p><p>And then I came back to it 10 years later, and on top of that, made it a love letter to coming of age in the early 2000s.</p><p>This fic is dedicated to all the content creators who have diligently been writing soriku fics for the past 13 years. I have been living in your headcanons for the past few weeks, and they are beautiful, and delightful, and I love every single one of them</p><p>I really hope you enjoy this story half as much.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For the warnings: It probably doesn't merit an E rating (or the under-age tag) but... oh, well. The E/under-age things that happen are: Sora jacks off thinking about Riku, Riku jacks off thinking about Sora, and the two of them grind on each other near the end.</p><p>Beta'd by my brilliant and talented sister. Thank you, as always.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Riku feels…numb.</p><p>Shocked.</p><p>Frozen.</p><p>He can’t even feel the pain in his side, still raw and fresh, the kind of injury no amount of magic will ever fully heal.</p><p>He’d forgotten this. What the Realm of Light feels like. What <em> happiness </em> feels like. And now he feels so <em> much </em> he doesn’t think he can <em> move.  </em></p><p>Sora and Kairi probably think he’s being aloof, or sulking, but he doesn’t <em> care </em>. He’s staying in the shade of the paopu tree, watching Goofy and Donald, Sora and Kairi play in the sand and the surf and the fading light.</p><p>“The Realm of Light sure can feel overwhelming, huh?”</p><p>He glances down and finds the King’s soft eyes on him.</p><p>“But not in a bad way.”</p><p>“Not in a bad way,” Mickey agrees, and Riku doesn’t even mind that the King follows his gaze as he returns to watching the shore. To watching his friends.</p><p>To watching Sora.</p><p>“They’re having so much fun,” Mickey says. Riku wonders how many other people would know that his voice is sad. “It makes me wish we didn’t have to leave at all.”</p><p>He looks down again, but the King is already moving, crossing the rickety bridge from the paopu island back to the play island shore. Riku falls into step behind him.</p><p>“Alright, fellas,” Mickey says, once they’re close enough that he doesn’t have to raise his voice to be heard over Donald’s squawking and Goofy’s <em> hyuks </em>. “It’s time to head for home. We have a long flight ahead of us, after all.”</p><p>Donald and Goofy snap to attention, like they always do when they hear their king, and then seem to deflate as they parse his words.</p><p>“Ohhh,” Donald moans, eyes downcast, while Goofy says, “Gawrsh, Majesty, do we gotta leave already?”</p><p>“Don’t look so sad, fellas! This isn’t goodbye,” he says, and Riku can’t help the way his head whips around, just like Sora’s and Kairi’s do. </p><p>“Do you mean it, Your Majesty?” Sora asks, placing his hands on his knees so he and the King can see eye to eye. “You <em> promise </em>we’ll see you again?”</p><p>The King’s laugh tinkles out, like bells tolling dawn.</p><p>“Why, of <em> course </em>I mean it! The three of you are keyblade wielders—guardians of light! We’ll be seeing you all real soon!”</p><p>Sora pouts, and Kairi pleads, but when it can’t be put off any longer, they walk the King and his knights to their gummiship, landed nose-deep in the sand. The gangplank rises—Sora calls out one last goodbye—there’s a flash of light, and then they’re gone.</p><p>For a long moment, the three of them just watch the sky.</p><p>Then Sora collapses onto the sand, legs crossed, hands on his ankles, huffing his breath out in a sigh.</p><p>Kairi slides down until she’s sitting beside him, and—after a moment—so does Riku, flopping to rest at his other side. Riku stares at the horizon, at the sun disappearing beneath the sea, and feels a calm he’s not sure he’s <em> ever </em>known.</p><p>“It does sound different,” he says, finally. He’s the first one to break the silence, which surprises him as much as anyone.</p><p>“What sounds different?” Kairi asks, peering around Sora to look at him.</p><p>“The waves,” Sora answers. “They’re not the same as the ones at the End of the Road.” </p><p>Kairi hums, like she’s thinking.</p><p>“No,” she says finally, voice certain. “They are the same waves. Even if they sound different.”</p><p>Riku wonders, but doesn’t ask her how she can be so sure. Sora doesn’t either. Instead, he says:</p><p>“We didn’t see anyone but us here today, did we.”</p><p>Kairi sighs, long and drawn out.</p><p>“No,” she says. “Our friends are all too <em> old </em>to come here to play.” There’s a mocking twist to her words that doesn’t sound much like her. “And the little kids are all too scared of the stories of the dark hurricane.”</p><p>Riku doesn’t ask, but then he doesn’t need to. That can only be the storm of darkness that destroyed this world when he—</p><p>“That reminds me.”</p><p>Sora’s voice jerks him out of the spiral. Like it always does.</p><p>“What…do people think…happened? To us?”</p><p>Kairi hisses out a long sigh, and Riku can <em> feel </em>Sora tensing up beside him. When she answers, her voice is soft.</p><p>“There was…a year when no one seemed to remember you.”</p><p>Riku clenches his teeth so fast he hears the clack.</p><p>“But people can remember you again now. They think…they think…” She heaves a breath. “I think they think you died.</p><p>“Nobody <em> talks </em>about it, of course,” she says quickly. Riku wonders if that makes it better or worse. He thinks about going back to the Big Island. Back to what waits for him there.</p><p>Back to what <em> doesn’t </em>wait for him there. He wonders if he can face it.</p><p>“So let’s stay here tonight.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, blurted into the air as soon as they cross his mind. In for a munny, in for a million, Riku continues: “There’s nobody to find us. We can stay in the tree house, like we used to want to when we were little.”</p><p>At the others’ silence, he begins to flush, but then:</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sora. “Yeah. I’d like that.”</p><p>“<em> I’m </em>not going back home before I have to,” Kairi says. “I was already in trouble with my dad before I went looking for you two. Now I’ll be under house arrest!”</p><p>“I wonder if any of our stuff’s still there,” Sora says, leaning back on his hands.</p><p>Riku trails his hand through the sand beside him, enjoying its residual warmth. The wind blows through his hair. </p><p>“Let’s find out.”</p><p>Before the others can move, he’s leapt to his feet and taken off running. A quick look behind him confirms that Sora and Kairi have taken up the chase.</p><p>In years past, he would have milked his head start, putting on another burst of speed to put as much distance between him and them as possible. Now, he slows down, almost to a jog, so that first Sora, then Kairi can catch up with him. The three of them reach the tree house together.</p><p>“You do the honors,” Sora says, turning to Kairi. It feels right, somehow, for her be the one to open the door. She puts slender hands against warped, wind-washed wood, and <em> pushes </em>.</p><p>The three are met with mildewed blankets, moth-eaten pillows, ruined crayons, and a stack of water-stained construction paper that looks like something might be living in it.</p><p>Sora sighs in relief. “Just like we left it!” he says, and Riku has to agree.</p><p>Sora plunks to the ground and checks the three flashlights they always kept in the back corner in case of emergencies. One of them’s still working, and Sora balances it upright, so that the yellow glow fills the small space.</p><p>“Man,” he says as soon as it’s steady, flopping down on his back. “I’m exhausted.”</p><p>“I’m tired too,” Riku says, lowering himself to the floor.</p><p>“We had a long day,” Kairi says, curling up on her side.</p><p>“A long <em> month </em>,” Sora mutters.</p><p>“A long year.”</p><p>They’re quiet for a long moment, breaths deepening and evening out as they relax into the dark and the quiet. Somehow, Riku’s wound up with Sora on one side of him and Kairi on the other. Which is all to the good, he supposes. They <em> are </em>older now. At least he can serve as a sort of chaperone.</p><p>Beside him, Sora’s breath goes from heavy to snoring, and he grins, allowing his own eyes to slip closed. Sora always was the first to fall asleep, even when they were kids.</p><p>He relaxes into the wood of the floor, somehow more comfortable on hard ground than he’s been in…more than a year. Many years, really. The crash of the waves are syncopated with Sora’s and Kairi’s breaths, and it’s calming, like the lullabies his mom used to sing him when he was small.</p><p>“Hey, Riku.”</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>Kairi has her voice pitched low. Too law to wake Sora up.</p><p>“Do you…mind? That I pulled you out of the Realm of Darkness?”</p><p>“No.” His voice matches hers. For a long moment, he thinks that’s all she’s going to say.</p><p>“What was it…like? The End of the Road? The darkness?”</p><p>He takes the time to consider it.</p><p>“It was more peaceful than I thought it would be,” he says finally. “Only me and Sora were there.”</p><p>“Was that better? Than here?”</p><p>“Of course not.” This time he doesn’t have to think.</p><p>Kairi hums and goes silent. Just when he’s about to drop off, she murmurs:</p><p>“I’m glad you’re back, Riku. I missed you.”</p><p>He doesn’t think she means back on the Islands.</p><p>***</p><p>He wakes early, like he always does, and for long seconds can’t interpret the signals his senses are sending to his brain. There’s hard ground at his back, like there always is. His shoulders and hips are sore from it, like they always are. But there’s…warmth against his cheeks. Against his lips. A soft, comfortable weight is covering his chest, part of his stomach, and a sliver of his thigh.</p><p>The weight is breathing in time to his breath, and its heart beats in time to his own.</p><p>Strangest of all, the backs of his eyelids are <em> orange </em>, like they used to be before the blindfold, if he would close his eyes and point his face to the sun.</p><p>Poised at the edge of remembering, he dares himself to open his eyes.</p><p>He has to squinch them closed again at the <em> strength </em> of the sunlight in his face. He steels himself and tries again, this time opening them slowly.</p><p>The wood ceiling looks colorless against the sheer vibrance of the sun and sky he can see through the tree house window. He lifts his head and rolls his eyes, half annoyed and half affectionate, when he identifies the weight on his chest.</p><p>Sora has rolled on top of him in the night, lying angled over him so his cheek is against Riku’s sternum and his chest against Riku’s abdomen. That explains why his morning wood is so much worse than usual, although thankfully Sora’s angled enough that he’s nowhere near <em> that. </em>He begins to shift his weight, hoping he can roll Sora off of him without waking him up, when he notices something. Sora’s left hand is thrown full over Riku’s body, into the space where Kairi’s curled next to them. He follows the curve of his arm and finds Kairi’s right hand clasped firmly in Sora’s left.</p><p>Riku closes his eyes, heart overflowing with something sad and sweet. Sora’s not his. Kairi deserves him. He loves Sora, and he loves Kairi, and he’ll still love them both when they’re together.</p><p>It’s something it took him a year to face, alone in the darkness, but these are thoughts he touches daily, <em> hourly </em>, now.</p><p>The two of them look so peaceful.</p><p>He supposes he can let them sleep.</p><p>***</p><p>The second time he wakes up, his erection’s gone, but he needs to pee urgently. He opens his eyes and confirms the sun’s halfway up the sky. Kairi has snuggled closer in the early morning chill, and now she’s cuddled into his side, using his upper arm as a pillow. He can feel her drooling against his bicep.</p><p>He feels through his body, tensing and relaxing his muscles as he prepares himself to move. Then, he heaves himself upright, for a moment lifting the combined weight of all three of them.</p><p>Kairi’s head thunks to the floor, and Sora tumbles off of him a moment later.</p><p>“<em> Ow, </em>” Sora whines. Riku snorts when he sees he still hasn’t opened his eyes.</p><p>“Ay-yi-yi,” Kairi moans, clutching her head. He knows she’s putting it on, so he ignores her.</p><p>“You don’t have to be so rough, Riku,” Sora says.</p><p>“I’m not your pillow,” Riku points out, tilting his head to pop his neck. “And you forget, I know you. It’s not like anything <em> less </em>would wake the two of you up.”</p><p>He leaves them then to go pee behind some trees. When he gets back, Sora and Kairi look significantly more awake.</p><p>“What time is it?” Sora asks, as soon as he’s back, like he’ll somehow magically know. He’s about to say something snarky when Kairi sighs and answers instead.</p><p>“Time to face the music.”</p><p>Sora grimaces and gets to his feet, heaving Kairi up after him.</p><p>They make the long, slow walk to the dock together in silence. Riku focuses on the warmth of the sun, the breeze tangling his hair like soft fingers, the way his weight shifts beneath him as his feet sink into the sand. Things he never thought he’d get to feel again.</p><p>Once the dock’s in sight, he stops, and Kairi and Sora stop too, turning to look at him.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Kairi asks.</p><p>“Three canoes,” Riku says. He’s seen the same thing a million times, seen it almost every day of his life, before he wrenched the world in two, and just the sight is enough to allow the regret to get a jump on him and sucker punch him in the gut.</p><p>“That is a little strange,” Sora says, throwing his hands behind his head. “Who else would have left canoes here? Didn’t you say it was just us?”</p><p>Kairi hums.</p><p>“I got back a few hours before you guys did,” she admits. “I had Donald and Goofy help me bring two canoes over from the Big Island. I wanted us to be able to go home together.”</p><p>Sora shoots her a dazzling smile that makes the old jealousy twist in his gut, but without even thinking too hard about it, he’s able to let it go. Mickey had told him it might take practice before he stopped feeling the jealousy at the top of his mind, and even then, it might not go away completely.</p><p><em> Emotions are neither right nor wrong, </em> the King had told him. <em> It’s how you act on them that matters.  </em></p><p>He runs through his mantra one more time, just for good measure. He loves Sora. He doesn’t own Sora. He wouldn’t want to. Kairi’s wonderful. She deserves him.</p><p>“Riku?” Kairi asks. He starts. He hadn’t realized she was still at his side. He wonders how much of his emotions show on his face now, without the darkness to mask them.</p><p>“You knew we’d come back,” he says finally, even though it’s not what he’d been thinking of. Not really.</p><p>Her smile is soft, always softer than Sora’s, but it has the same warmth to it. As a boy, he’d once gotten into a fight with his art teacher, insisting over and over that blue was a warm color, because it <em> had </em>to be. Just look at their eyes.</p><p>“Of course I was,” she says, holding out a hand. “The two of you were together.”</p><p>Riku takes the offered hand and helps her into her canoe. As the last one on the dock, he unties the mooring of all three vessels before jumping into his own, a motion he’s done a million times.</p><p>His heart clumps oddly in his chest as they approach the Big Island. The beach is littered with canoes pulled up high enough that the tide can’t drag them out to sea.</p><p>They wait for a wave to rock them up the beach and all jump out, grabbing their canoes to haul them up to where the sand flattens out, where the waves won’t reach. This is everyone’s least favorite part about using canoes to travel between the islands. After a long day of playing, when you’re already sunburned and tired and have sand in your underwear, dragging the canoe up the beach feels terrible and exhausting. It’s common for children to lazily leave them too close to the shore, only to come back the next day and find them swept away.</p><p>But the last year has made him stronger, and he barely notices the drag of wood against sand now. Sora’s gotten stronger, too, pulling his canoe easily with one hand, but Kairi is struggling. He shifts his canoe to his left hand so he can take hers with his right, dropping them when the sand turns into boardwalk.</p><p>They pause when the wooden planks of the boardwalk turn into the asphalt of High Street.</p><p>“This is weird,” Sora says, speaking for all of them. “What are we supposed to tell our parents?”</p><p>Kairi snorts. “Not the truth, that’s for sure.”</p><p>Sora looks over at her, wide eyes begging for an explanation.</p><p>“I made the mistake of telling my dad what the dark hurricane was, once. Right after the world returned to light. Before the year they forgot you, Sora, when they were still sending out search parties to trawl the sea floor every day. He had me in to see a psychiatrist so fast I got <em> whiplash </em>.”</p><p>Riku shifts his weight. It makes sense. The King had told him all about the Order of the Worlds, the defenses each world has to prevent cross-contamination.</p><p>“So what are we supposed to do when we have to leave again?” he wonders aloud. He also wonders how long they’ll really <em> be </em> here before they have to leave again, but he doesn’t say that part aloud. He’d thought about pressing the King for more information when he said they’d see each other soon, but had decided not to bother. King Mickey could be <em> really </em>cryptic when he wanted to be.</p><p>“I don’t know.” Kairi’s voice is soft. “I just left this time. Without telling anyone. But that doesn’t feel sustainable, does it? We can’t keep doing that to our parents. I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone.”</p><p>“Aw, come on guys,” Sora says, face settling into a dazzling grin. He never could stay somber for very long. “Today’s gonna be a happy day! We get to go home, see our parents, sleep in our own rooms! Everything else we can figure out later.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Riku says.</p><p>“Yeah.” Kairi’s smiling. “Come on, guys. Let’s go home.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. In Fragments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sora goes home. He doesn't like what he finds.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Where the boardwalk runs into High Street is where Riku’s path diverges from his and Kairi’s. Riku turns right, to follow the boardwalk as it turns into La Corniche, while he and Kairi continue straight on, down High Street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something in him rebels at seeing Riku walking away from him like this, when it took </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much</span>
  </em>
  <span> just to find him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For his part, Riku doesn’t turn back, doesn’t falter as he walks away, like it’s not difficult for him at all. Sora shoves his hands deep in his pockets as he feels something twist in his gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Kairi says from beside him, and he jolts, realizing he’s been watching Riku this whole time, craning his neck harder and harder to keep him in view as their paths diverge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’ll be okay,” she continues. “Y’know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he agrees, forcing the coiling, sick heat in his gut back somewhere it can’t reach him. “Tell me what all has been happening around here while me and Riku were gone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Kairi does, talking about Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, Quistis, Lulu, and Seymour like he’d been gone for a weekend and not for more than a </span>
  <em>
    <span>year</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Halfway through a story about Selphie’s abortive first-and-only date with Tidus, Sora stops paying attention. He doesn’t mean to. But as he walks down a sidewalk that ought to feel familiar but </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he can’t help but think about how this world would look if he were visiting it for the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d assume it was smaller than it is, he realizes. Assume that what he’s seeing now is all there is to see. It makes him wonder how much of the worlds he’s visited he’s truly seen at all, and the thought is like branches scraping against glass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In spite of his melancholy, he musters up a smile when he leaves Kairi at the mayor’s residence. He watches her walk up the long, gravel drive to make sure she gets in okay. Even before she’s reached the door, Mrs. Solas, Kairi’s nanny, bursts outside and pulls her into what looks like a somewhat hysterical hug.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns his face towards home, throat suddenly tight and eyes burning, like his heart has decided on </span>
  <em>
    <span>this exact second</span>
  </em>
  <span> to remember all the times over the past year he was desperately in need of a hug from his mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He breaks into a run.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s only four blocks to his house from Kairi’s, and he’s always been good in a sprint, but somehow it takes an eternity to bridge the distance. He sees the house—the same wide front porch, the stained glass panel in the door—and his heart hiccups in his chest. He takes the front steps in one massive leap and shoulders the door open without even bothering to check if it’s locked first. Locked doors stopped really </span>
  <em>
    <span>meaning</span>
  </em>
  <span> anything ages ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom?” he calls, stopping in the entryway, heart beating loud in his ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no reply. The house is dark, and he feels like there’s something </span>
  <em>
    <span>off </span>
  </em>
  <span>about it that he can’t quite put his finger on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does a quick circuit of the lower floor, but finds no one. Frowning, he pokes his head into the garage, and finds that both his parents’ cars are gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that explains that,” Sora says to himself, trying not to feel foolishly betrayed that his parents—who had no idea whatsoever that he would be coming home today—weren’t here and waiting for his arrival. He shrugs it off and wanders into the kitchen, looking for some breakfast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets that same pin-prickling feeling of </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrongness </span>
  </em>
  <span>when he pulls the fridge door open and shivers. He grabs a yogurt cup and eats it hurriedly, standing in the middle of the kitchen. Then, with nothing else to do, he heads up the steps to his bedroom, thinking he can catch a nap. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His bedroom door is open, which it never used to be—but that’s hardly a surprise. He steps inside and then stops, heart pounding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It still is his bedroom. He tells himself that. That’s his desk, side table, and dresser. That’s his comforter on the bed. The walls are the same peach-pink they’ve always been, and it’s his posters on the walls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But besides that…it’s empty. There’s nothing </span>
  <em>
    <span>on </span>
  </em>
  <span>his desk, side table, or dresser. There are no stuffed animals on the bed, or on the windowsill behind it. The bookcase is empty—his games, magazines, and comic books are gone. It’s almost like—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like they didn’t think he was ever coming back. He swallows and clenches his fists, and it’s enough of an opening for the hoarse whisper he can sometimes </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>at the back of his mind to slip in: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Or they didn’t want you to. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought is stupid, and it’s easy to bury it. He has a thought, and he pulls open the closet, both relieved and disappointed to see the neat stack of boxes inside it, carefully labelled as </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora’s Things. </span>
  </em>
  <span>An entire childhood, packed into boxes and hidden out of sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He yanks the bottom box out—at least the strength he’s gained from saving the world is good for </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>; he’s able to do that trick where he tugs it fast enough that the other boxes in the tower don’t topple over—and empties it onto his bed. Carefully, he arranges the stuffed animals across the bedspread and windowsill, the way they’ve always been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had been too old for them, really, even before he left, but they make the room feel less lonely. They make the room feel like </span>
  <em>
    <span>his. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He allows himself to fall backwards onto the bed and sighs comfortably, tucking his hands behind his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s tired. He knows it’s still morning and he woke up not that long ago—</span>
  <em>
    <span>and you spent an entire </span>
  </em>
  <span>year </span>
  <em>
    <span>asleep not that long ago</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that voice in the back of his mind supplies—but he doubts he slept that well last night. Even in his dreams, he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>felt </span>
  </em>
  <span>how close he was to Riku, and that had been enough to keep him pressed up against the boundary of wakefulness all night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The memory of spending the </span>
  <em>
    <span>night </span>
  </em>
  <span>next to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Riku</span>
  </em>
  <span> is enough to make his dick twitch, and he scrubs at his eyes and groans. This had </span>
  <em>
    <span>started</span>
  </em>
  <span> happening even before he left the Islands, but after he woke up from that dumb pod it had only gotten worse. And that had been with just memories of </span>
  <em>
    <span>fifteen-year-old </span>
  </em>
  <span>Riku. Now that he’s seen what Riku looks like </span>
  <em>
    <span>now… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His unhelpful brain supplies the images: Riku’s waterfall of silver hair, now longer and shaggier, but still that color that makes Sora believe that somehow, starlight had been spun into silk. He’s so much taller now than he used to be, and Sora hasn’t grown </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>much, so now Riku’s chest is basically level with his eyes. How that ridiculous, tight zippered vest Riku’s been wearing shows off a triangle of pale skin right over his navel. How when he fights, or runs, or does </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> really, his pecs strain against that vest in a way that makes Sora’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>mouth </span>
  </em>
  <span>water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s mostly hard now, and getting harder, and he can’t fight the temptation to slip a hand inside his pants. He’s never jerked off while thinking about Riku before. He’s never </span>
  <em>
    <span>let </span>
  </em>
  <span>himself before, but he’s set off a chain reaction of memory and desire and action that he doesn’t know how to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grips himself firmly by the base and strokes up once, pausing to squeeze his head and run a thumb over his hole to collect any moisture beading there. The feel of it makes him jerk. He’s so sensitive already, and he’s barely </span>
  <em>
    <span>done </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He starts slow, pumping his hand languidly, and he can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>think of Riku.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How broad his shoulders are now. His arms—those </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking </span>
  </em>
  <span>arms—which had always been toned, but now are big, and muscular, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfectly </span>
  </em>
  <span>defined. How Riku’s face has gotten thinner, making him look more mature. More adult. How his eyes are the same as they’ve always been: gemstone-bright and ocean-deep, and the most beautiful color Sora’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>seen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t take him long to go from slow to frantic. He bucks up with his hips, and that feels so good he starts doing it on every downstroke, getting faster until he’s breathing hard and sweat is beading on his face. He feels the tension coiling in his gut and throws back his head, braces his heels on the bed, bares his teeth at the ceiling, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>shatters </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the memory of hearing Riku laugh for the first time in more than a year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes him a moment to catch his breath. He’s never come that hard before, and for a second, he can only feel bone-deep satisfaction everywhere. Then he realizes what he’s done and guilt erupts in his gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shouldn’t have done that. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong </span>
  </em>
  <span>of him to do that, perving after his best friend. What would Riku think if he knew what was in Sora’s mind right now?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shudders, and the movement reminds him of the mess in his briefs. His adventuring gear will be fine—it’s seen </span>
  <em>
    <span>way </span>
  </em>
  <span>worse than this—but he ought to change his underwear before rolling over and taking a nap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets to his feet and pulls open the top drawer of his dresser, and is stupidly surprised to find it empty before he remembers. He shakes it off. He thinks the top box was labelled </span>
  <em>
    <span>Clothes</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds a stack of underwear with no trouble, but the first two pairs he tries on are too small. Like </span>
  <em>
    <span>way </span>
  </em>
  <span>too small. Seriously, did his entire growth spurt go to his ass? With a pang, he thinks of the hold of the gummiship, which has a drawer of underwear, socks, and pyjamas that are </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>exactly Sora’s size, no matter how much—or which way—he grows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, he finds a pair of boxers that used to be too big on him. They more-or-less fit him now. He thinks they were Riku’s once, loaned or forgotten during one of their many sleepovers. It makes him feel weird, wearing Riku’s clothes, after…</span>
  <em>
    <span>whatever</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he bites his lip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We-ell…a nap can only help, right?” he asks his window of stuffed animals. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes their silence as agreement and tucks himself into bed, smiling a little as he falls asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An unfamiliar noise wakes him, and he bolts upright and summons his keyblade before he’s even opened his eyes. Once he has, he doesn’t know where he is, and his first thought is to call out for Donald and Goofy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then some part of his brain that’s deeper than thought recognizes the smell of sun-bleached cotton and the yellow glow of sunlight against his bedroom walls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears another noise, a creaking sound, like someone is trying to climb the stairs silently. He blinks and pushes the covers back so he can swing his feet onto the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as he does, the door bursts open, and his mother is there, holding a table lamp above her head like a club.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Who the hell are you?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she begins, then her jaw goes slack. The lamp drops from her fingers and thunks to the carpet, and she presses a hand over her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her voice is high and almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>scared</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Sora has imagined this moment a million different ways, but in his mind, it’s never gone like </span>
  <em>
    <span>this. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom?” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she drops to her knees on the floor and starts sobbing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora is at her side in a second, putting his arms around her shaking shoulders in a mirror image of the embrace he’s imagined. Then her tears set </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> off, and he’s crying too, and his mother is hugging him hard enough to bruise and he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>care</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw the front door was ajar, and I thought…After you left, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>closed your bedroom door, so I…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her tears turn into laughter eventually, but she’s still shaking so hard that Sora’s afraid she’ll come </span>
  <em>
    <span>apart</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and it’s a strange thought because his mother has always been—well. Invincible. She cycles through tears and laughter twice more before she’s calm enough for Sora to help her down the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sit on the couch, side by side, for what feels like a long time. His mom keeps reaching out to touch his face, whispering things like, “My baby boy,” and “My Sora.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes Sora feel funny. Happy, of course, but also…well. He’d had no idea that being gone would make his mom so </span>
  <em>
    <span>sad. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And he should have known. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>have known, if he had only taken the time to think about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where have you </span>
  <em>
    <span>been</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” his mother bursts out once, as if she can’t help herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora thinks back to Kairi’s warning, and his heart sinks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mother must catch the change in his facial expression, because she gives herself a little shake and wipes her eyes on the backs of her hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she says in a voice that finally sounds more like her own. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to tell me. Not yet. I’m just so </span>
  <em>
    <span>glad </span>
  </em>
  <span>you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>home.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She mentions lunch not long after, and they move to the kitchen, Sora sitting at the kitchen island while his mom fixes sandwiches, feeling guilty for not helping in a way that wouldn’t have occurred to him last year. He sets the table, at least, even though his mom tells him not to, but it makes him feel better. Sora chomps on his egg sandwich, and it feels warm and familiar. If not for the way his knees are knocking up against the underside of the table because he keeps forgetting they’re longer now, he could almost imagine that he’d dreamed everything, and that he hasn’t been gone at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallows and looks up, and feels a smile forming as he asks the same thing he has thousands of times before:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom, when’s Dad getting home today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s expecting her to smile or laugh with the </span>
  <em>
    <span>familiarity </span>
  </em>
  <span>of it, but instead his mother’s face crumples, and his insides freeze solid. His brain flicks back to that day so many years ago when he’d learned that Riku’s mother had died. He’d been seven. She had been thirty, and a burst blood vessel in her brain had knocked her dead where she stood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom?” he asks as the silence stretches, infinitely elastic in his panic. “Mom? Is Dad alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” she says, shaking her head and seeming to come back to herself. “Yes, of course he’s fine. As far as I know. I suppose I need to call him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stares at her food like she’s no longer hungry, but makes no move to stand and get the phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom,” Sora asks, voice higher than he wants it to be. “Is Dad at work?” He realizes he doesn’t even know what day it is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” his mother says. She reaches over and takes his hand, squeezing it once—but Sora thinks it’s more to reassure </span>
  <em>
    <span>her </span>
  </em>
  <span>than for him. “Well, probably, I suppose, but…that’s not why he’s not here. Sora, your father and I are divorced now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To his credit, he doesn’t ask her to repeat herself. He sees how much the words have cost her, and wouldn’t make her say them again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>understand.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Divorce—the word clangs with the finality of a door slipping shut, locking one person in darkness and one in light. He’s travelled the </span>
  <em>
    <span>worlds</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he’s seen </span>
  <em>
    <span>dozens </span>
  </em>
  <span>of love stories, but he’s never seen two people more in love than his mother and his father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, honey,” his mother says, as if, even though he hadn’t said it, she can still </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear </span>
  </em>
  <span>it. “Sometimes love changes. But that doesn’t mean that either of us love </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> any less.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods, dumbly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really do need to call your father.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes into the next room to make the call, and Sora starts eating again. It’s purely mechanical, but he’s seen and done and survived too much to stop eating just because the world’s been pulled out from under him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’ll be here in an hour,” his mother says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once they’ve finished eating—or rather, once </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora </span>
  </em>
  <span>has finished eating and his mother has finished staring at her plate—Sora clears the table and follows his mother back into the living room. He doesn’t know what to say, and apparently she doesn’t either. Just as the silence is about to become unbearable, she reaches for the remote and flips on the TV.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora doesn’t even pay enough attention to register what channel it’s on. He’s too caught up cataloguing the </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrongness </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d noticed before, but couldn’t identify until now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Most of the photos Sora remembers are gone, replaced with watercolors or landscapes or nothing at all. The only ones that remain, he realizes as he runs his eyes across the room, are the ones of him, or of him and Riku, or of him and Riku and Kairi. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The framed blitzball jersey from his father’s college championship season is gone, too. So are his trophies. And now, Sora realizes what had been off when he’d opened the fridge: there had been no meat in it. His mom is a vegetarian, but his father is practically a carnivore. Usually—or rather, </span>
  <em>
    <span>before—</span>
  </em>
  <span>the fridge would be full of seven days’ worth of meat, which his mother would prepare for him alongside her vegetarian dishes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels himself spacing out, and lets it happen. Normally, he has a hard time sitting still, but now his mind is racing for him. He doesn’t try to settle it, because a settled mind means having to </span>
  <em>
    <span>name </span>
  </em>
  <span>these emotions pinging around in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wonders if Jane and Tarzan will ever get divorced. Or Aladdin and Jasmine, Ariel and Eric, Jack and Sally, Mulan and Shang, Belle and Beast—although that one’s weird, he doesn’t know why he’s never thought about that before now—Nala and Simba. He wonders if the King and Queen ever will. He wonders how you can </span>
  <em>
    <span>tell</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a knock on the door, and he’s so amped up on his jitters that he has to stop himself from summoning his keyblade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mother stands and goes to the entryway, and Sora trails along behind her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She opens the door, and for a few seconds everything is just as it should be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora!” his father says, and his voice contains everything he’s imagined: shock, relief, gratitude, affection. He pulls him into a bear hug and ruffles Sora’s hair, and for a moment, Sora feels like he’s truly </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then everything starts to go wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father waves a hand, silently inviting them all into the sitting room. His mother purses her lips and glares, holding her ground, and with a jolt, Sora realizes this isn’t his house anymore. He must realize it at the same time, because he drops his head and raises one hand in apology. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” his mom says, and this time she leads the way into the sitting room. As the three of them sit, Sora can’t help the way he keeps glancing from his father to his mother, then back again, trying to determine what </span>
  <em>
    <span>changed</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t find anything. They both look exactly the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” his father says, and suddenly he sounds grave. “Where were you, young man?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His brain stalls out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Norman!” his mother hisses. “Sora, you don’t have to tell us anything you’re not ready for.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he does,” his father insists. “The sooner we get the whole story, the sooner we can make a report to the police, and the sooner we can catch whatever </span>
  <em>
    <span>monster </span>
  </em>
  <span>kidnapped our </span>
  <em>
    <span>son</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t even know he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>kidnapped yet!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, stop being an idiot for once in your life, Julia. What </span>
  <em>
    <span>else </span>
  </em>
  <span>could have happened? You think he—what? Ran away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora feels winded. He’s never heard his father talk to his mother that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh my God,” his father says, voice somewhere between horrified and resigned. “That’s exactly what you think. That Sora and that Riku kid ran away together—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>say </span>
  </em>
  <span>that—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t have to. Sora’s not </span>
  <em>
    <span>like </span>
  </em>
  <span>that, Julia. He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>normal</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows his father couldn’t have meant it like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but that doesn’t stop Sora from feeling like he’s been punched in the gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is exactly why—” his father cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Look, Julia. I’ll have my firm send around some paperwork later today. You’ll get partial custody, obviously—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Partial</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” she gasps, a bubble of disbelieving laughter forcing its way past her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t know what the boy has been </span>
  <em>
    <span>exposed</span>
  </em>
  <span> to, and he needs—order and structure right now! We both know that you’re not as—as </span>
  <em>
    <span>stable </span>
  </em>
  <span>as you could be, that your judgment has always been clouded when it comes to Sora—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Me, unstable</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s like his mom just needed the right opening to start hitting back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want to talk about </span>
  <em>
    <span>clouded judgment, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Norman? You want to talk about </span>
  <em>
    <span>unstable behavior</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Why don’t we talk about how you cheated on your wife with one of your </span>
  <em>
    <span>floozy ex-clients </span>
  </em>
  <span>for </span>
  <em>
    <span>five years</span>
  </em>
  <span>—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t bring that up in front of Sora,” his father grinds out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not? He has to find out sometime, and you just said you wanted Sora to </span>
  <em>
    <span>live </span>
  </em>
  <span>with you and your little whore—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>call her that—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I’m sorry, what word </span>
  <em>
    <span>should </span>
  </em>
  <span>I use for someone who trades sex for munny? Prostitute? Sex worker? What’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>proper</span>
  </em>
  <span>,</span>
  <em>
    <span> legal term</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Norman—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s heard all that he can stand. He gets up jerkily, feet feeling strangely cut off from the rest of his body. That finally gets his parents to stop shouting at each other at least, but now they’ve turned their attention on </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which almost feels worse right now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father calls after him and his mother reaches out for him, but he ignores them both. All he can process right now is a crushing need to get out, </span>
  <em>
    <span>out</span>
  </em>
  <span>, away from here. He doesn’t even bother shutting the front door behind him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His brain doesn’t know where he’s going. Luckily, his feet do.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I haven't played BBS, so it's entirely possible that I got the layout of the Islands wrong here. I'm pretty sure in BBS Riku's and Sora's houses are closer together than they are in this story. I thought about addressing that (by saying that Riku had moved between the ages of 5 and 15) but then just let it go.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. In Shock</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Riku goes home and finds three strangers there.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Riku’s footfalls change from the hollow thumping of boots against boards to the lighter tapping of soles against concrete as the boardwalk turns into La Corniche. He has to keep himself from turning around to watch Sora’s retreating back like a lovesick idiot as he and Kairi take the other road, so he focuses on the sound instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps his head tilted forward, hair covering his eyes as he walks, hunching his shoulders a bit anytime he passes someone. Destiny Islands is a big world, as far as they go, but as a kid he must have known or recognized at least half the people who live on the Big Island. He doesn’t know what he’s more afraid of: not being recognized on his own world, or people knowing </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly </span>
  </em>
  <span>who he is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hits the corner of Palm Grove Lane and takes a left. It’s not his street, but there’s an alley connecting Palm Grove and Everglade that he’s been using as a shortcut since he was old enough to walk to the beach on his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s house is only a ten-minute walk from here, but it’s clear that this is a different part of town. The homes are postage-stamp sized, many with broken gutters or peeling paint. The roads have potholes that the city council always promises to fix but doesn’t. Unlike in Sora’s neighborhood, where everything is sculpted landscaping and cushioned patio chairs, here it’s chain-link fences and cheap plastic tables. A few of the houses have flower pots on their stoops, but most of the flowers in them are plastic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku had been embarrassed, as soon as he’d gotten old enough to notice the differences between Sora and himself. Sora always had the nicest things: new clothes, professional-grade blitzballs, a flat-screen TV in his living room. Riku’s bought used t-shirts and stuffed animals and broken action figures had always seemed tawdry in comparison. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There had been a time, right after his mother died, when he had been mad about it, and at Sora’s effortless, sunshine-bright eagerness to share. The feeling hadn’t faded until Sora had started coming to </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>house some days after school, where he would gush over Riku’s toys and how well he could cook—he’d learned, had to, to try to coax his father to eat, those terrible first months after the funeral—and how, after dark, there was always music playing on the block. As if the radios blaring way past their bedtime was a sign of a block party going on nearby, not of poverty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku remembers how, every time Sora had slept over and the radio from two doors down would start playing a song he liked, he would whoop aloud. It had made Riku feel like maybe he had something he could offer Sora after all.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hauls himself over the chain-link fence separating his back yard from the alley and drops neatly to his feet on the other side.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That had been a nice summer, he remembers, his heart thumping with the love-regret that always fills it when he thinks of Sora. Sora had </span>
  <em>
    <span>loved </span>
  </em>
  <span>how everyone would pour out of their houses around dusk, flinging the windows and doors wide open to draw in the cooling outside air, since hardly anybody had air conditioning. The neighbors had been almost as charmed as Riku was by the blazing-bright boy who would go up to </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone</span>
  </em>
  <span>, talk to </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone</span>
  </em>
  <span>, make friends with </span>
  <em>
    <span>everyone. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku’s too buried in his memories to see what’s right in front of him. He pushes the back door open and leaves his boots in the laundry room. It’s not until he walks through into his kitchen that his eyes and his brain sync up again and everything comes screeching to a halt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except for his mouth, apparently, which happens sometimes when he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> surprised, and he can’t quite choke back the broken, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because it’s not his house. It’s not his kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the house he grew up in, of course—he hasn’t been gone so long that he’d forget where his </span>
  <em>
    <span>house </span>
  </em>
  <span>is—but it’s different now. There are blue curtains hanging in the windows, replacing the dingy blinds that neither he nor his father had ever gotten around to cleaning. There’s a real table in the center of the room, not the square card table Riku remembers. It even has a tablecloth on it, and a vase full of flowers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there’s a woman and two children staring at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman recovers first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The back door was locked,” she says. She doesn’t sound angry, more like she just blurted out the first thing that occurred to her. But she’s standing at the stove holding a cast-iron skillet, and that would make a perfectly good weapon even if the burner below it </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>glowing cherry red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he says, raising his hands to show he means no harm and backing his way into the laundry room. He stumbles over something—his boots. Of course—and catches himself against the doorframe. “I’m really sorry. This isn’t—I guess I’m—lost.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words make him feel sick, because he’s spent </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much </span>
  </em>
  <span>time being lost, and he should’ve expected this but really hadn’t. He should have asked, should have pumped Kairi for information last night, because his father had completely fallen to pieces after his mother died, had never really recovered, and Riku had </span>
  <em>
    <span>never once thought </span>
  </em>
  <span>what losing his son, too, might do to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears the front door being pulled open, but the sound is far away. And then the person who opened it calls out:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, I got whipped cream for Margi and syrup for Mom and me—” and walks through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the entryway, and everything stops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a white plastic shopping bag in his hands, and Riku watches it clatter to the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku,” he says, as if he’s seeing a </span>
  <em>
    <span>ghost</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad,” Riku says, and he sounds the same way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then suddenly one of them must </span>
  <em>
    <span>move </span>
  </em>
  <span>because suddenly they’re hugging each other so tightly Riku thinks he might </span>
  <em>
    <span>break</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Riku</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he hears the woman gasp in the background, so at least she’s heard his name before. Riku is shaking, and he’s breathing too hard, like he might start hyperventilating, but he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>care</span>
  </em>
  <span> because he feels the tendrils of darkness that taste of </span>
  <em>
    <span>fear-guilt-grief </span>
  </em>
  <span>beginning to recede from his heart. His father is </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, right in front of him, safe and alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kids are screaming in the background, and his father eases his grip, but only enough to kiss Riku’s forehead like he hasn’t done since he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>tiny</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and with a lurch, Riku realizes his dad has to stand on tiptoe to do it now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, his dad lets go of him properly, but Riku doesn’t stop shaking, so he pushes him firmly into a seat at the kitchen table. Trying to be discreet and probably failing badly, he wipes his eyes on his armguard as his dad takes the seat kit-corner from him and holds onto his shoulder like he’s worried he’ll evaporate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, the kids stop yelling, and there’s quiet. Then, the little girl juts out her chin, just like Sora used to when he was that age and hadn’t gotten attention in too long, and asks:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy, what does </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span> mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rest of the morning is chaos.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With pancakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melissa—that’s the woman’s name, his </span>
  <em>
    <span>father’s wife’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> name—seems to deal with surprise by feeding people, which is fine by Riku, since he’s not quite out of his most recent growth spurt. Also, he’s been living on moogle-bought ration bars for like a year, and has had actual dreams about real food.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad still hasn’t recovered enough to do anything besides grip Riku’s arm and feed the little ones the pancakes off his own plate, so eventually it’s Melissa who starts talking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She introduces the kids first—Riku’s brother and sister, he realizes with a jolt. The girl, Margi, is four. She interrupts her mother to tell Riku so, brimming with pride. The boy, Ray-Jay, is eleven months.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Raymond Junior?” Riku asks, smiling in spite of himself, and his dad rolls his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melissa’s idea, not mine,” he mutters, and it’s the first words he’s said since Riku’s name. It’s hard to tell through the baby pudge, but he thinks Ray-Jay has the same sharp nose as his father does, and his bright blue eyes might darken to teal as he gets older. Margi, on the other hand, has dark hair and eyes, and her skin’s a few shades darker than even Sora’s. She looks nothing like his father, but she’s too old to be his anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The information isn’t offered, and Riku doesn’t ask, and he forgets all about wanting to as Melissa explains how she met his father. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She describes meeting his father at work, at the City Transit Authority, where Melissa was something called an </span>
  <em>
    <span>optimization engineer. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Riku blinks when he hears it, but doesn’t interrupt. His dad had worked as a mechanic at a local garage when he was little, but he’d lost the job after his mom died. After that, it had been a long line of temporary gigs he’d landed between bouts of depression. Riku remembers the CTA job—it had started just a week before he left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You still work there?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound as surprised as he feels.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mhm. But he’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>chief </span>
  </em>
  <span>mechanic now,” Melissa answers for him, pride in her voice, and Riku flushes, pleased on his father’s behalf. He’d used to love his work—had dreamed of opening his own repair shop one day. He hopes he has that back now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you?” he asks Melissa.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head, licking a napkin and wiping some syrup off Margi’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m taking some time off. These little rascals keep me plenty busy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When did you guys get married?” Riku asks, clearing his plate of the fifth—sixth?—helping of pancakes of the morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Last year,” Melissa answers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next question pulls at his tongue, but it takes him a while to be able to voice it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are…there pictures?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melissa stands up so fast he thinks he’s offended her, but she’s only gone for a second before she returns, hugging a white satin album to her chest, and she’s smiling when she sets it in front of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku wipes his fingers on his napkin and pulls the book open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ray-Jay and Margi are getting antsy on the other side of the table, so Melissa clears up the breakfast things and tells his dad she’s taking them outside. On her way past, Ray-Jay balanced on her hip and Margi’s hand in hers, she pauses so she can knock her elbow against his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” she says. “Welcome back. Welcome home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ducks behind his hair, both in acknowledgment and to hide his blush. Melissa laughs, a pure, bell-bright sound, and finishes getting the kids to the backyard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku turns his attention back to the album, and his dad swings his chair closer so he can look with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their wedding was a block party, he sees as he flips through the pages. All of their neighbors had come, some dressed in suits and dresses and some dressed in board shorts and flip flops. He recites the names in his mind as he flips past the familiar faces. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In almost every picture, his father and Melissa are holding each other close and smiling. His father is wearing a perfectly tailored suit, a sprig of clivia pinned to his lapel. Melissa’s bouquet is of the same plant, and she has more braided in her dark hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the photos, his father looks ten years younger than he had a year ago, like the weight of the world has melted off his shoulders. But next to Melissa…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How old is she?” he asks. It’s easier to do when they’re alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Twenty-five,” his father says, wincing a little. “Twenty-three when I met her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku hums in acknowledgment. His father is—what, 35 now? His parents had had him young. Sora’s parents are almost a decade older.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know she was that young at first,” he admits. “I knew she had a daughter, and by the time I realized…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m really glad you found someone who makes you this happy, Dad,” he says, eye catching on a shot of his father and Melissa laughing. Melissa’s head is tipped back, eyes squeezed almost shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She was the only one who believed me, when I said you were still alive,” he says quietly, and Riku jerks his head up. “Everyone else told me—well, it was the worst hurricane on record, and…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father squeezes his shoulder, as if to ground himself. Or to hold onto Riku.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even Dr. Loire—that’s the therapist I started seeing, after the hurricane—told me that pretending you were still alive was an unhealthy coping mechanism. I can’t wait to rub </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>in her face next week! But Melissa believed in me—in you—and that helped me see that I wanted to…do better. Make you a home you’d want to come back to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku’s heart twists in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…never meant to be away so long,” is what he finally manages, even though it sounds weak in his own ears. His father holds him a little tighter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When you’re ready, tell me about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Embarrassed, Riku turns another page of the album. His eye snags on another photo of Melissa, one of the few where she’s in profile. Riku raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. He hadn’t realized she’d been pregnant on their wedding day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margi was the flower girl,” his father says, pointing to the next photo on the page. His voice is impossibly fond, and that makes him smile as much as the picture of Margi smiling up at the camera, a crown of clivia in her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who else was in the wedding?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You remember my buddy Keoni?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku hums.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He officiated. Melissa’s friend from college was maid of honor. But that was it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No best man?” Riku asks, glancing up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah,” his father says, smiling a little. “My first choice was unavailable, and no one else was good enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Me</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Riku asks, voice higher than he’s heard it in years, and there’s a blush spreading to his </span>
  <em>
    <span>ears </span>
  </em>
  <span>now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you. Who else?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku gapes at him, feelings stuck somewhere between disbelief and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pride</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His father laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I ought to join them outside,” he says. “Thursday’s my day off. It’s the only day I get to play with the kidlets. You’ll be okay on your own for a bit?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father gives his shoulder one last, lingering squeeze, as if he can’t possibly bear to let him go, then pushes himself out of his chair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku stays where he is, turning the pages of the album one by one, drinking in every smile, every laugh caught on camera. He studies them hungrily, spirits them away to a place inside his heart. This is his family now. It’s so much bigger and brighter than it was—God, just </span>
  <em>
    <span>hours </span>
  </em>
  <span>before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t look up until he hears the front door slam open for the second time that day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, wow. Am I in the wrong house?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re in the right house, Sora. Come on through.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t expected to see Sora again today. He’d expected him to be fully occupied with his own tearful reunion, but as soon as he looks up he knows that something’s gone badly wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” he asks. He remembers his own panic of that morning, and feels a shadow of it lap at him again. “Are your parents okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora groans and throws himself into the chair nearest him, the one his father had been sitting in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean…yes and no? I don’t know. It’s complicated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If anything, that makes Riku’s own panic echo </span>
  <em>
    <span>worse</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he knows better than to prod Sora when his eyes are far away like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The thing is…they got divorced, Riku.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels all the air leave his lungs in a whooshing rush.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Holy shit,” he says. “Did you see both of them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. My dad came from—work, or wherever he’s living now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And?” Riku prompts, when Sora doesn’t say anything else. “What happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora heaves out a sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They didn’t…seem like themselves. They fought, Riku.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku frowns. That sucks, obviously, but it doesn’t track with how dejected Sora is looking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They fought about </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ah. Riku hisses out a sigh and puts his hand over Sora’s. It’s brushing right up against the line he draws for himself between Approved Safe interactions and Unsafe ones, but…he can let it slide this once. Particularly when Sora puts his other hand over Riku’s, sandwiching it between the back of one hand and the palm of the other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bet they weren’t really fighting about you,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora glances up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Riku leans into him a little so he can bump him with his shoulder. “Bet they just wanted to fight. I don’t know when it happened, but—it has to be in the last year, right? And a year…that’s not that long, for something like this. I bet they’re both still just hurting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>heard my dad talk to my mom that way before,” Sora says. “Like…disrespectful. And then the things she said about </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>…I don’t want them to be true.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku keeps his face carefully neutral. He’s never exactly liked Sora’s father, but now is hardly the right time to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Instead, he hums low in his throat and squeezes Sora’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly, he feels some of the tension draining out of Sora. He feels him straighten, then begin to look around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait. Is that a high chair?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku grins. For once in his life, he knows </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly </span>
  </em>
  <span>how to cheer him up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on outside,” he says, standing up. “I have some folks I want you to meet.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. In Denial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sora spends some time with Riku's family.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Just when Sora thinks he can’t possibly become any </span>
  <em>
    <span>more </span>
  </em>
  <span>infatuated with Riku, he somehow materializes not one, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>two </span>
  </em>
  <span>baby siblings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear </span>
  </em>
  <span>himself hyperventilating from how cute they are as he and Riku watch them playing in the backyard. The little girl, Margi, is tan even for an islander, with giant, liquid-dark eyes and hair pulled into two puffs on either side of her head like she’s trying to imitate the King. She’s having a tea party with her parents as guests, and Mr. Segara has the little boy, Ray-Jay, in his lap. Ray-Jay is in that cutest possible baby stage, still a little ball of pudge but old enough to babble and chuckle at the world around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At Riku’s nod, he takes off running across the yard to join in the fun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as Mr. Segara sees Sora charging towards them, he hands off Ray-Jay to…Mrs. Segara, he guesses, although that’s the name he’s always associated with Riku’s mom—and stands. Sora doesn’t understand what’s happening for a second, but then Mr. Segara opens his arms and, well…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s never exactly been one to turn down a hug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s good to see you, Sora,” he says, pulling him into a bone-crushing embrace. “I figured you’d be back, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora smiles into the hug. He hadn’t seen much of Mr. Segara while Riku’s mom was alive, because he was always at work, and then…</span>
  <em>
    <span>after</span>
  </em>
  <span>…he’d spent most of his time in his room with the door shut. After a while, his own dad had told him he couldn’t go over to Riku’s house anymore, if there wasn’t proper supervision, and Sora had seen even less of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t really realized Mr. Segara cared about him. It makes something fizzy and warm pulse through his heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you my big brother, too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Segara lets him go and Sora turns to Margi, putting his hands on his knees to be closer to her solemn eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can be your big brother if you want,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama says that…</span>
  <em>
    <span>Ri-ku</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she says the name carefully, nose scrunching as she navigates the syllables, and she is </span>
  <em>
    <span>so fucking cute—</span>
  </em>
  <span>“is my big brother, so I can’t be scared of him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora drops into a cross-legged sprawl at the pink, plastic play table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He does look very scary sometimes, doesn’t he,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margi nods, unblinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Especially when he looks like this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora pulls his face into his best Riku-sourpuss expression. He knows for a </span>
  <em>
    <span>fact</span>
  </em>
  <span> he looks ridiculous like this, with lips pulled into a thin line, nostrils flared, and eyes hooded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margi giggles, delighted, and there’s even a snort from the other side of the table. He glances up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melissa,” Mrs. Segara says, holding a hand out to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh…uh…” he says. He’s never called one of his friends’ parents by a first name before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mrs. Segara smiles and changes the angle of her hand so it’s palm up, like she’s coaxing a wild animal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, right?” she says, voice low, and that’s like she’s coaxing a wild animal, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he says, taking the offered hand and shaking it a little awkwardly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Margi demands, fretful with no one’s attention on her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My name’s Sora,” he says, turning back to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku!” Mr. Segara calls from Mrs. Segara’s other side. “What are you up to?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry! The phone rang.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels more than hears Riku approach, in that strange way he’d realized he could after taking his hand when he looked like Ansem in the World That Never Was. He doesn’t have to look around to know how Riku’s sitting when he plops down next to him a second later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sees Margi’s eyes go wide again, angling her face downwards like she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s staring at Riku.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora makes the face again. He has to hold it until Mr. Segara chuckles for Margi to notice it, and then she shrieks with laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop it,” Riku huffs, shoving him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs, and his soul </span>
  <em>
    <span>sings </span>
  </em>
  <span>with it. When was the last time he was this free?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leans over the table, propping himself on one elbow, cupping his mouth in an exaggerated caricature of a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margi, have you noticed that sometimes when people act like they’re mad, they’re really just being shy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margi’s eyes are as wide as saucers. Riku groans, and again, Sora doesn’t have to </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or that, when people who are shy groan and roll their eyes and hide behind their hair, they’re really just embarrassed—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A muscled—God, </span>
  <em>
    <span>so</span>
  </em>
  <span> muscled—arm wraps around his shoulders and presses him into Riku’s chest, pinning him for a noogie. Which is what Sora had been angling for all along. He giggles helplessly as Riku’s knuckles raise static in his hair, face flushing because he can feel Riku’s heartbeat against his back. Margi is giggling, too, and Sora hopes it’s enough to break the ice between them and help her see how </span>
  <em>
    <span>lucky </span>
  </em>
  <span>she is to have Riku as a brother. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, Riku loosens his hold on him, but instead of pulling away, Sora flops backwards so his head is resting on Riku’s thigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get off,” Riku says, pushing a bit, but Sora groans at him and he relents. Instead, he takes the hand he’d been shoving him with and runs it through his hair, smoothing away the static, rubbing soothing circles into his scalp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Segara has a coughing fit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” Sora asks, lifting his head to look at him, concerned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes—fine,” he says, but he’s still a little breathless. “But it’s about time for the parents to take the kidlets inside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” Margi wails. “I wanna stay here with Big Brother Sora and Big Brother Riku!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margi,” Mrs. Segara says, standing up. “Your dad and I have chores to do inside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, but—Margi and Ray-Jay can stay outside, right?” Sora asks, sitting up properly now. He wants to spend more time with them. “Me and Riku can watch them. Isn’t that right, Margi?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah!” she cheers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well…” Mrs. Segara says, already crumbling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ll be fine with us,” Riku says. “Or with Sora, at least. He has like a million hours of babysitting experience. Remember that summer you made like 900 munny from babysitting, then blew it all at the arcade in one </span>
  <em>
    <span>day</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was a great day,” Sora says, smiling. It had taken six hours, but he’d finally earned the arcade’s grand prize—a giant dragon plushie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know…” Mrs. Segara says. Maybe that story hadn’t been the right one to tell, in the circumstances. Sora pulls out his ultimate weapon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please?” he says, giving her his best puppy-dog eyes. As soon as Margi sees the play here, she joins in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, alright,” Mrs. Segara says, throwing up her hands. But she’s laughing. “We’ll just be inside. Call if you need anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora stands so he can take Ray-Jay from her, balancing him expertly on his hip and waving as the parents go back into the house. As soon as the door shuts behind them, he sits back down—gently, this time, because of the baby—and turns back to Margi. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now,” he says. “Were we having a tea party?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A </span>
  <em>
    <span>pirate</span>
  </em>
  <span> tea party,” she corrects with four-year-old haughtiness. “Put Ray-Jay away, you need both your arms for swords and teacups.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora hums.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I don’t have a drawer to put Ray-Jay in right now. Maybe I should give him to Riku?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margi considers the suggestion and nods once, apparently finding it satisfactory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile, Riku has begun to panic next to him, completely predictably.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>I’m terrible with babies—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Sora says, snickering. “This can’t possibly be scarier than a bunch of Nobodies or Heartless.” He thrusts Ray-Jay into Riku’s hands, laughing harder when Riku freezes, Ray-Jay held out in front of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He can sit in your </span>
  <em>
    <span>lap</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But—don’t you have to, like—support their heads? What if I hurt him—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh my </span>
  <em>
    <span>God</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Riku,” Sora says, cackling so hard he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>crying</span>
  </em>
  <span> now. “Ray-Jay’s not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>newborn</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’s not going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>break</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Here,” he says finally, when Riku still doesn’t move. He repositions Riku’s arms so that Ray-Jay can sit in his lap, facing him. “Babies at this age love peekaboo and grabbing things. Think you can handle that without passing out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s expecting a snarky response, but Riku just nods once, eyes on Ray-Jay, a look of utmost concentration on his face. Something about big, intimidating Riku holding a baby in his lap makes the inside of Sora’s chest go squishy and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He blames it on his crush and hurries to push it away, even as the smarter, snarkier part of his mind points out that fantasizing about adopting babies together someday might indicate his feelings are a little bigger than just a </span>
  <em>
    <span>crush</span>
  </em>
  <span>.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margi waits incredibly patiently as Sora gets over his attack of heart-eyes, but mimes pouring him a </span>
  <em>
    <span>pointed</span>
  </em>
  <span> cup of tea as soon as he’s pulled himself together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora takes the imaginary cup out from beneath the imaginary teapot’s stream of tea and brings it to his lips, blowing on it so it doesn’t burn his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Haya told me that pirates don’t have tea parties,” Margi says, watching Sora and copying him carefully. “So I told her she was a poo-head, and then I got in trouble. She cried.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pirates do so have tea parties!” Sora says. “I’ve been to some! But you shouldn’t get mad at your friends when one of you knows something the other doesn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margi’s eyes are wide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know </span>
  <em>
    <span>pirates</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” she asks. He’s not sure she actually heard the </span>
  <em>
    <span>lesson </span>
  </em>
  <span>part of the sentence, but he doesn’t worry about that just now, turning to Riku with a grimace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ray-Jay has his hand fisted in Riku’s hair and is tugging at it, giggling while Riku sticks out his tongue and crosses his eyes. He notices Sora looking at him and stops what he’s doing long enough to shrug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I doubt it’ll hurt anything,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Satisfied, Sora turns back and leans conspiratorially—cons-</span>
  <em>
    <span>pirate</span>
  </em>
  <span>-orially, heh—over the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do I </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>know pirates! Let me tell you all about them!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s barely at the part of the story where he realizes the cursed pirates can’t be hurt in moonlight when Margi hops up, full of wiggles and giggles, unable to simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>listen</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore. The two of them act the rest of it out, leaning on Riku for dramatic support to do the deep voices, and even convince him to be the Grim Reaper at the end, although Sora tells Margi they have to knock the cursed pirate gold out of him with cheek-kisses instead of a keyblade. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun is low in the sky by the time Sora and Margi round out the afternoon with a twirl battle, spinning around and around until they both have to sit down hard in the grass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Big Brother Sora?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora had half-heartedly tried to explain to her that he isn’t her big brother in the same way that Riku is, but the name has stuck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What should we name our pirate ship?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.” He closes his eyes. “What do you think, Riku?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The answer is instantaneous:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excalibur.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora rips his eyes open and turns to look at him, forgetting how dizzy he is for a second and then regretting it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That had been…their last disagreement, before they left the island. Their last competition: what to name the raft. Truthfully, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Excalibur </span>
  </em>
  <span>had just been the first thing that popped into his head that day. He hadn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>remembered </span>
  </em>
  <span>that that was the name he had come up with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Riku had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes his heart feel like it’s full of static electricity, made worse when he notices Ray-Jay sleeping against his chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luckily, Mrs. Segara pulls the door open to call them into dinner just in time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not convinced I ate lunch,” Riku says mildly, pushing himself to his feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should get home,” Sora says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay,” Riku says. “Your mom called earlier to see if you were here—” Sora winces. He should have realized his mom might panic when her long-lost son walked out of the house without any explanation “—and I told her you might eat dinner here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora considers. He doesn’t want his mom to feel like he’s avoiding her, and yet…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought of going back to a house echoing with memories of raised voices and harsh words is less than attractive. And what if his dad is still here, and Sora sparks another fight?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shudders. No </span>
  <em>
    <span>way </span>
  </em>
  <span>is he facing that on an empty stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Sora, you’re staying for dinner?” Mrs. Segara asks when he and Riku get the little ones inside and Sora begins setting another place at the table for himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Er…if that’s alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” Riku says, blushing a bit. “I should have asked. I…forgot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No—no,” Mrs. Segara says, quick to smile. “Of course it’s alright. We’re glad to have you. Riku, what are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku’s got his head buried in the fridge, rummaging.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Making Sora a sandwich,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not going to force Sora to eat a </span>
  <em>
    <span>sandwich </span>
  </em>
  <span>for dinner! There’s plenty of chili—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora’s a vegetarian,” Riku cuts her off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No—not really,” Sora is quick to say. This was always a bone of contention between his parents, and he doesn’t want </span>
  <em>
    <span>another </span>
  </em>
  <span>fight to be about him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku snorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which is why you never eat meat when you’re given half a choice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora hesitates. A part of him wants to insist that he doesn’t mind eating meat—he didn’t exactly turn his nose up at </span>
  <em>
    <span>any </span>
  </em>
  <span>food offered to him over the past year—but now that he’s paying attention, Mrs. Segara doesn’t look </span>
  <em>
    <span>mad </span>
  </em>
  <span>exactly and…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>like eating meat. It always made him feel weird, and that was before one of his best friends was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>duck</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks, Riku.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want grilled cheese or peanut butter?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora cocks his head, considering, and smiles a little guiltily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ten minutes later, they’re at the table, Sora with </span>
  <em>
    <span>both </span>
  </em>
  <span>a PB&amp;J and grilled cheese on his plate. Margi demands a bite of each and he’s happy to give her them, but then there’s a bad moment where she insists that </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>wants to be a vegetarian, too, if it means she gets to eat grilled cheese for dinner instead of chili. Thinking quickly, Sora points out that vegetarians don’t get to eat hot dogs or cheeseburgers either. She looks at him through squinty eyes at first, like she doesn’t quite believe him, but finally relents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dinner is…nice. Sora doesn’t talk much—keeping up with a four-year-old all afternoon is tiring, even for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>—but the kitchen is full of the cadence of voices anyways. They’re steeped in laughter and love. Just once, his mind flickers, wondering if meals at his own house will ever feel like this again. But he pushes it away, focusing instead on the simple pleasure of right </span>
  <em>
    <span>now, </span>
  </em>
  <span>on how it's warm and there’s food and nothing’s trying to kill him and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Riku’s here. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He and Riku clear up from dinner, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Segara free to get the little ones ready for bed. When he absolutely can’t draw it out any longer, Sora sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart clenches, but he gets rid of it before it can show on his face. What if Riku has been wanting to get rid of him?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s music blaring when they step out onto the sidewalk, and Sora smiles. He’d loved that as a kid. How there was always music on this block.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not until they’ve been walking for a while that Sora realizes he’s forgotten something important.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>okay?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?” Riku says eloquently. It sounds like Sora knocked him out of his thoughts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora snorts. “Come on. It’s not every day someone springs a step-mom and a new brother and sister on you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku hums, with him now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was just thinking about that,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He wasn’t thinking about you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the sneering voice that lives in the back of his mind, the one he tries not to listen to, whispers to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s…a lot. I guess I feel kind of…numb? Kind of overwhelmed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Sora’s turn to hum. Not to prompt him, but just to show he’s listening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But…my dad seems really happy, and I haven’t seen him happy in </span>
  <em>
    <span>ages</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He loves Melissa and Ray-Jay and Margi. I’m sure I can learn to love them, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora smiles. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>already </span>
  </em>
  <span>loves Ray-Jay and Margi, but Riku has always been more cautious with his heart than Sora.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I feel…” It’s so quiet that Sora almost doesn’t hear it. “Like I don’t deserve it. I’ve done so many bad things. What right do I have to come home to three more people to love?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora feels tears pressing heat into his throat. Riku deserves all the love in all the worlds and then some, but if he opens his mouth right now, he’ll </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>sob, so instead he thrusts his hand towards Riku’s, their knuckles rubbing together like a mallet running down a xylophone until he’s able to thread their fingers together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels Riku startle, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. Sora’s a little surprised. They’d been </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>touchy-feely friends growing up, but Riku had started flinching away from that easy affection in that year running up to—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He cuts off the thought when they reach his house, the porch light casting shadows inside of shadows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” he says. His voice is stuffy, but he figures it’s not a total tell, here in the dark where Riku can’t see how red his eyes are.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku drops his hand, and the breeze against his palm feels clammy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For walking me home,” he clarifies. “And for letting me crash your family time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, you heard Melissa. You’re always welcome. Particularly if you keep offering free babysitting services.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It shakes a laugh out of him, even if it’s a little watery. The laugh sparks a hidden reserve of courage he didn’t know he had, and he surges up, throwing his arms around Riku’s neck. Riku freezes beneath him, not hugging him back, and Sora lets him go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” he says. “Thanks—for everything. Goodnight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He races up the steps and bolts through the door without a backwards glance. As soon as he’s alone, self-hatred bubbles in him like a well-spring, and this time it’s impossible to force down. Stupid. He’s so </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>just </span>
  </em>
  <span>got Riku back, and there he goes, scaring him </span>
  <em>
    <span>off </span>
  </em>
  <span>again.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I didn’t want to be found.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The memory zings through his brain, unstoppable, and he groans and lets himself fall backwards against the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is this why? Why Riku hadn’t wanted to be found? Because he knew that Sora…? Is </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>why?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, honey?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The light clicks on, and he realizes he’s been standing in the entryway in the dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora takes a deep breath, composing himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, Mom. I’m fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, I’m so sorry.” She envelops him in a hug, and for a moment it’s exactly what he needs. “I’m sorry you had to hear me and your father fighting like that. We shouldn’t have—we weren’t fighting about you. It’s just, it’s still so new for both of us, and we were both so, </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>worried about you…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She heaves a deep, shuddering breath and loosens her grip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About what I said…I want you to forget it. I—I don’t want you to dislike your father.” She doesn’t say it wasn’t true. “He asked if you could spend the weekend with him, and I...think you should.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora blinks. He doesn’t even know where his father </span>
  <em>
    <span>lives</span>
  </em>
  <span>, how far it will take him from Riku and Kairi, but his mother is standing there with wet cheeks, wringing her hands, and there’s only one answer he can possibly give.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, Mom.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sora is fantastic with children and you can pry this headcanon from my cold, dead fingers</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. In Healing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kairi and Riku get ice cream and have a heart-to-heart. Riku may or may not cry.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I made very minor edits to this chapter (I added an aside in a sentence to make this line up better with something else I'm writing).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sora calls him early the next morning to tell him his dad is picking him up that afternoon, and he’ll be spending the weekend with him.</p><p>“Okay,” Riku says. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper left over from his father’s breakfast ritual. It doesn’t contain anything he’s even remotely interested in, but his father’s at work and Melissa took Margi and Ray-Jay to play group, so there’s nothing else for him to be doing. “Want me to see you off?”</p><p>There’s a long pause.</p><p>“Nah,” he finally says.</p><p>“Okay,” Riku says, and maybe that’s for the best. Mr. Bienaimé never did like him much. “Wanna hang out beforehand, then?”</p><p>“No,” Sora says, more quickly this time. “I gotta pack, and I should…spend some time with my mom.”</p><p>“Okay.” The silence hangs heavy between then. “Call me tonight. I mean, if you want to. To tell me how it goes.”</p><p>“Sure,” Sora says, but it’s not convincing. God, Riku’s hardly ever heard Sora sound like this. Not just tired, but <em> subdued </em> . Sora has so much life in him, so much <em> light </em> , that normally Riku can <em> hear </em>it thrumming through him, even when he’s sleepy, or melancholy, or sick. </p><p>“Bye, Riku.”</p><p>The line disconnects before he can respond, and he rubs his face, flustered. Finally, he sighs and heaves himself up and goes to start his day.</p><p>He’s at loose ends all morning. He feels directionless, a little lost, not really sure what he’s supposed to do with just…empty time. A part of him feels like he ought to be training, but he can’t exactly materialize a keyblade in the backyard. The magic that keeps people from questioning the apparition of giant sword-keys in worlds where stuff like that isn’t a part of everyday life doesn’t kick in unless there are Heartless or Nobodies around to fight. Another part of him feels like he ought to be bonding with his new family, but they’re out for the morning, and even more than that, it’s…<em> awkward </em>without Sora or his father here to break the ice.</p><p>Eventually, he settles for cleaning his room and going through his clothes, organizing them into four distinct piles: things that were too big on him before, so he <em> might </em>be able to wear now; things he can give to Sora; things he can give to Kairi; and things that are so worn out that they’ll have to be thrown away.</p><p>After that, he lies on the couch in the living room, flipping through one of his dad’s motorcycle magazines, not really sure what to <em> do </em>with himself.</p><p>When Kairi calls after lunch, it’s almost the happiest he’s ever been to hear her voice.</p><p>“Wanna go to the boardwalk and get ice cream?” she asks, in lieu of even saying hello.</p><p>“Oh my <em> God </em>, yes,” he says, not realizing until this minute how badly he needs to get out of the house. “What time?”</p><p>“Now? I can be there in 15 minutes.”</p><p>“Sounds good.”</p><p>“I tried calling Sora, too, but no one was home. Do you know where he is?”</p><p>Riku frowns. He’d assumed Sora would have called Kairi before calling him.</p><p>“He said he’s spending the weekend with his dad. I think he’s getting picked up this afternoon, so maybe he’s already left?” Riku offers. “I don’t think he’s available.”</p><p>Kairi hums and Riku tenses, wondering if she’s going to be jealous that Riku knows something about Sora that she doesn’t.</p><p>“Poor Sora. That sounds tough. You told him he could call you if it got to be too much, right?”</p><p>Nope. Not jealous, then. Apparently that’s still just a Riku thing.</p><p>“Of course,” he says. “I’ll see you in a few.”</p><p>He’s getting ready to head out the door when a firm hand on his shoulder stops him.</p><p>“Where do you think you’re going?” Melissa asks, eyebrows raised. She and the kids had gotten home a few minutes before, and she’s just returning downstairs from putting them both down for a nap.</p><p>“Out,” Riku says, shrugging off the hand.</p><p>“<em> Excuse </em>me?”</p><p>Riku pauses, confused for a second by her darkened eyes and pursed lips, until he realizes it’s probably the monosyllabic answer that offended her.</p><p>“To…the boardwalk to get ice cream?” he tries instead.</p><p>“Is that a question?”</p><p>“...No?”</p><p>Melissa’s cheeks flush a little. This is not going well.</p><p>“To the boardwalk to get ice cream,” he repeats, making it a statement this time.</p><p>“Okay,” she says, but she draws it out. Riku stares at her. He has no idea what she wants from him.</p><p>“Who with?” she prompts finally.</p><p>Oh! Oh, that is a normal thing for parents to ask their children when they go out. He’d kind of forgotten that over the past…however long it’s been. Although, come to think of it, his dad had never asked it either. He’s not sure if that’s because he’d been too depressed to care, or because the answer was always the same.</p><p>“Kairi,” he says.</p><p>“Uh-huh. And when will you be home?”</p><p>“Later?” he squeaks, already knowing it’s the wrong answer. And he said it as a question. He licks his lips. “Should I, like…call if I’m going to be out past a certain time or something?”</p><p>Melissa rolls her eyes, but she also puts a hand on his shoulder and spins him around so he’s facing the door again, so she can’t be <em> that </em>mad.</p><p>“Dinner’s at 8. Be home for dinner.”</p><p>“O-okay,” he says, feeling distinctly at a loss.</p><p>“Did you put on sunscreen this morning?”</p><p>“Uh…” </p><p>He hasn’t put on sunscreen in over a year. There’s not really any point when you’re wearing a full-body cloak, or in the Realm of Darkness, or when you know healing magic.</p><p>“Well, why don’t you do that before you leave,” she says pleasantly enough, then turns to head into the kitchen.</p><p>Predictably, Kairi finds the story hilarious, laughing so hard at the sunscreen exchange that the bite of ice cream she’s just taken falls out of her mouth and lands on her skirt.</p><p>“Gross,” Riku says, making a gagging noise when Kairi bends at the waist to suck it off.</p><p>“Ice cream is too precious to waste,” she tells him, and if anything, Riku’s nonplussed look makes her smile brighter.</p><p>They’re sitting on a bench on the boardwalk, one of the ones right between board and beach, and they've both taken off their shoes to squidge their toes in the sand. </p><p>“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Kairi says after a moment.</p><p>“Hunh?” Riku asks, licking a stripe off of his vanilla soft serve before it can dribble down his hand. Kairi and Sora always tease him about how plain his ice cream tastes are, but if something is delicious on its own, he’s never understood why you’d need to jam all sorts of other stuff in it, too. </p><p>“Hanging out. Just the two of us,” she explains.</p><p>“Oh,” he says. He supposes…they really haven’t done a lot of that. Not lately. Not in a long time.</p><p>“Hey, Riku. Can I ask you something?”</p><p>“Sure,” he says, lulled into a false sense of security by the waves and the sand and the ice cream.</p><p>“How do you…feel about Sora?”</p><p>The ensuing panic is enough to cause his brain to stall out, and it takes a second for it to reboot. Once it does, he almost wishes it hadn’t. His heart is jackhammering in his chest and he’s shaking so hard he’s worried he’ll drop his ice cream. </p><p>“I…he’s my best friend,” he chokes out.</p><p>A hand brushes up against his. Cupping his. Supporting his, keeping him from dropping his ice cream. In spite of everything, he has the presence of mind to snort. <em> Ice cream is too precious to waste. </em>Glad Kairi always hangs onto her priorities, in spite of everything.</p><p>“Is that all, though?”</p><p>Her voice is gentle. Soft. Not angry or horrified or any of the other things he’s imagined it would be when she finally found out. <em> If </em>she ever found out. He doesn’t need to tell her, not really, not if she already knows, but… </p><p>Doesn’t she deserve that, at least? After everything he’s done to her, after everything she’s <em> forgiven </em>, doesn’t she at least deserve for him to say it out loud?</p><p>She sighs and shifts, pulling her hand away. There’s melted ice cream all over it, and his. He guesses he’s been quiet for…a long time.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she says, but her voice sounds a little sad. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready—”</p><p>“I realized I was in love with him when I was five,” he interrupts. It’s almost like the words are <em> pulled </em> out of him. “We were watching a meteor shower, and Sora was scared, and I told him I’d always protect him. And suddenly I realized, <em> that’s </em> what they were talking about. In the fairy tales and story books. <em> True love </em>is this feeling in my heart when I look at Sora.”</p><p>“Riku,” Kairi murmurs, but Riku doesn’t stop. It’s like, now that he’s started this, the words are bubbling out of him like a geyser, with no way to cork them back up. Like he’ll never be able to stop them again.</p><p>“I realized I wanted him when I was thirteen. He’d always been beautiful to me, but suddenly it wasn’t just his eyes or his smile that I wanted to look at, and any time he hugged me or held my hand or touched me <em> at all </em> I would start to blush and stammer like a doofus, so I started pushing him away and turning everything into a competition, and I <em> tried </em>to tell him—”</p><p>He had. He really had. He’d sat down at his desk one night, right after he turned fourteen, and put everything he was feeling into words. All his love, his guilt, his anguish, his heartache, his <em> hope… </em>And then he’d sealed it with Sora’s name.</p><p>Sneaking out that night to put the letter in Sora’s mailbox is the second bravest thing he’s ever done.</p><p>Still meeting Sora on the play island the next day, swallowing down his tears when he’d realized that Sora wasn’t even going to <em> acknowledge </em> it, wasn’t even going to <em> mention </em> Riku ripping open his whole <em> soul </em>to him, burying that hurt down and still trying to be the friend that Sora deserved, is the first bravest thing he’s ever done.</p><p>But he hadn’t been strong enough to keep it up. He’d ignored the feeling of his heart buckling, and then it had splintered under the weight until he couldn’t take it anymore, and the cracks had let the darkness in, and then he was drowning, drowning, <em> drowning.  </em></p><p>He doesn’t realize he’s crying, struggling to breathe through suppressed sobs, until Kairi moves, plucking the melted mess of an ice cream cone from his hand and tossing it to the sand at their feet. Then she gathers him into her arms, standing on her knees on the bench to get the height she needs to curl around him, pressing his face into her stomach, and he gives up and lets the sobs come.</p><p>It takes him a long time to calm down enough to realize that Kairi is stroking his back, kissing the top of his head, murmuring soothing things into his hair. They’re probably making a scene, sitting like this out in broad daylight on the boardwalk, but for right now, Kairi feels strong enough to protect him from that. She feels strong enough to protect him from the <em> worlds </em>.</p><p>She feels strong enough to protect all three of them from himself.</p><p>Finally he pulls back, sniffling, knowing his nose is running and his face is pink and blotchy. He scrubs at his eyes with sticky hands.</p><p>“Sorry,” he says, voice gruff from embarrassment and tears. “I didn’t mean to go to pieces like that.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” she says, offering him a small smile before sitting back down. “I think you really, <em> really </em>needed that. I just wish you’d asked for help before—”</p><p>She doesn’t need to finish it.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “I know.” </p><p>He takes a few calming breaths, counting the seconds in and out, like Mickey had taught him. Beside him, Kairi goes back to her ice cream. Sensibly, she’d gotten hers in a cup, and while it’s now completely melted, it’s otherwise none the worse for wear.</p><p>Strangely, he does feel better. Lighter. Calmer than he has for almost three years. But there’s still something nagging at him. It won’t change anything, but somehow, he still wants to hear her say it. It will be therapeutic. It will give him…closure.</p><p>“How about you?” he asks, when he feels steady enough. “How do you feel about Sora?”</p><p>Kairi sighs.</p><p>“He’s my best friend,” she starts, just like Riku had, and he bumps her shoulder with his own when she trails off.</p><p>“And?” he asks.</p><p>“And…nothing,” she says, looking up at him with almost <em> sad </em>eyes. “He’s my best friend. That’s it. There’s nothing more.”</p><p>For a second he wants to disbelieve her, but he can tell she’s telling the truth. Then the shock recedes, to be replaced by a dark, terrifying rush of <em> anger— </em> what, Sora isn’t <em> good </em>enough for her—before he tamps it down.</p><p>“<em> What </em> ?” he says, and enough of the <em> shock-hurt-anger </em> must bleed into his voice, because she smiles at him, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.</p><p>“I…don’t feel that way about <em> any </em>boys.”</p><p>And…<em> oh. </em> His breath leaves him in one giant rush, and with it goes the anger simmering in his gut, because— <em> oh </em>.</p><p>“I wanted to,” she says softly, staring into her melted ice cream like it holds the secrets of all the worlds. “I really, really wanted to like boys. And with Sora…if it was Sora, I thought maybe I could. I had to see him again to be sure. And then I saw him, and…I was sure.”</p><p>He stares at her, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. <em> He’d </em> known he was gay since—since <em> always </em> . He can’t ever remember <em> not </em>knowing it, in the same way he can’t remember not knowing how to swim. </p><p>But for Kairi, this had happened, like…He does the math, ticks back the days in his head—three days ago. It’s still raw and painful, and <em> she’s trusting him with it.  </em></p><p>“Kairi,” he says.</p><p>She lifts her feet onto the bench, drawing her knees up to her chest so she can hide her face in them, like she can’t bear to be seen.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Riku,” she says, not looking up. “For not realizing how you felt. For being too <em> preoccupied </em>to—if I’d known, I never…I never would have…”</p><p>And just like that, their roles are reversed. He hears her sob once, into her knees, and for once in his life he doesn’t overthink things. He just puts his arm around her and tugs her a little more snugly into his side, and lets her sniffle and shake next to him until she begins to calm down.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Riku,” she whispers again when she’s finished, and Riku hums and squeezes her tighter.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and he <em> means </em> it. After all, he could have told Kairi how he felt about Sora <em> years </em> ago and he hadn’t, choosing to keep it bottled up inside. “Hey,” he says, jiggling her a little when she still doesn’t look up. “Between the two of us, <em> my </em>gay panic is still the one that broke the universe, so stop making that face.”</p><p>“What face?” she demands, head still smooshed into her knees.</p><p>“The one I know you’re making,” he says. “You’re my best friend too, you know.”</p><p>That gets a watery laugh out of her, and finally she looks up.</p><p>“Thanks, Riku,” she says, leaning her head against Riku’s shoulder. He’s quiet for as long as he can manage, before he bursts out:</p><p>“God, I can’t believe we’re <em> both </em>gay.” Then, after a moment: “Poor Sora.”</p><p>“I think he’ll take it better than you think,” she says drily, and Riku chuckles.</p><p>“You’re probably right,” he says. He should have learned his lesson by now about not underestimating Sora. “His heart’s pretty strong.”</p><p>“Yeah, that,” she concedes. “But also…there’s more that drew the three of us together besides just being only children.”</p><p>“Mm,” he hums, not quite sure what she means. Kairi’s always been better at this <em> destiny-heart-bond </em>stuff than him.</p><p>She sighs dramatically, like she sometimes does when she’s told a joke that he doesn’t get, but then seems to let it go. </p><p>“Let’s do something fun tomorrow,” she says instead.</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>“I dunno. Wanna go to the mall? You could use some of your world-saving munny on new clothes. Unless you were just planning on wearing that stupid tank top every <em> day </em>.”</p><p>“The mall would be fun,” he says, not rising to the bait. There’s an idea half-forming in the back of his brain.</p><p>“Come on,” he says, once it finally slots into place. “Get up. We need to go out to the play island.”</p><p>“What? Why?” she asks, shoving him away when he tries to pull on her arm.</p><p>“Come <em> on </em> , Princess of Heart,” he says, rolling his shoulders and feeling a pleasant little pop. “Unless you don’t <em> want </em>me to teach you how to wield that keyblade I gave you.”</p><p>***</p><p>Kairi’s a natural—he’d never thought she’d be anything else—and teaching is so <em> fun </em> that he loses track of time. He knows he’s late as he pounds up his street; it’s getting dark, and the fireflies are out, reminding him of fairy dust. His mouth twists. It’s not a good memory. Maybe if he’s lucky, he’ll have the chance to go to Neverland again, <em> properly </em>this time, with Sora and Kairi at his side, and make it up to them.  </p><p>His dad is in the driveway when he gets to the house, sitting in the white puddle formed by the garage light, fussing with his bike. It’s a vintage Hardy-Daytona, his dad’s pride and joy, but he hasn’t seen it in years. He’d somehow assumed he’d gotten rid of it, after his mom died. He’s glad he didn’t.</p><p>His dad looks up and laughs when he sees how hard Riku’s breathing.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” he says, grinning. “Melissa said dinner is running late. You’re safe.”</p><p>“Thank God,” Riku groans, dropping to a seat next to him. “Is she always this strict about it?”</p><p>His dad snorts.</p><p>“I wouldn’t call it <em> strict. </em>Hand me the slip joint pliers, will you? Just…family time is important, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Riku says. “I guess you’re right.”</p><p>“Thanks for sounding so surprised,” he says drily. “And remember, this is new for Melissa, too. She knows how to parent babies and toddlers, and teenagers aren’t <em> that </em>different, but…”</p><p>“Oh, har har,” Riku says, rolling his eyes.</p><p>The front door opens. </p><p>“Ray!” Melissa calls. “Oh, Riku, there you are. Come in. It’s time for dinner.”</p><p>His father puts the pliers down and gets to his feet, then gives Riku a hand up, too.</p><p>“Help me get this stuff inside,” he says, and Riku grabs the toolbox while his dad gets the bike. The garage is more crowded than it used to be, now full of camping gear and tricycles and all sorts of things, but the toolbox still goes on the shelf in the corner like it always has. </p><p>“Hey, Dad,” he says, worrying his lip, heart fluttering a little. “You know I’m in love with Sora, right?”</p><p>His dad whirls around, mouth open, and Riku feels his heart sink.</p><p>“Oh my God. That wasn’t supposed to be a <em> secret </em>, was it?” he asks. He sounds so utterly horrified that Riku throws out his hands, placating.</p><p>“No! No,” he says, wanting to reassure him. “Not really. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”</p><p>His dad smiles.</p><p>“Yeah, I knew,” he says, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “But still. Thank you for telling me.”</p><p>They’re halfway to the front door when he hears him say:</p><p>“I’m glad you…want to tell me things again.”</p><p>And deep down, Riku feels another piece of his heart begin to mend.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. In Solitude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sora spends the weekend at his dad's place, and feels very alone.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It doesn’t take Sora long to pack his things after hanging up with Riku. He doesn’t have much </span>
  <em>
    <span>to </span>
  </em>
  <span>pack; the only clothes that fit are still the ones he’s wearing. In the end, he grabs a couple pairs of boxers he used to sleep in and some socks and stuffs them in his backpack. He could have just used his pockets, which are massive, and also magic, but figures that might raise a few eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pads down the stairs and leaves his backpack on the bench in the entryway and finds his mom on the back porch. She looks calmer today, he’s glad to see, smiling at him over the top of her book as he joins her at the porch table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what do you want to do today?” she asks when she reaches a good stopping point, marking her place in the book with a receipt before putting it on the table. There’s a sing-song cadence to her words because she’s said them so many times. It’s how every summer weekday always started, once breakfast had been eaten at this very table. He puts his hands behind his head and leans back, thinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can we make chocolate chip cookies?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chocolate chip cookies at 8 in the morning?” she asks. Her eyes are sparkling. “What a fabulous idea. I always knew you were smart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They make chocolate chip cookies, then peanut butter cookies, then brownies, then seven layer bars, only stopping when every bowl in the house is soaking in the sink and the A/C is shrieking, trying to keep up with the oven. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mom makes them each up a plate of goodies, even though they’ve both been snacking on sweets as they go in and out of the oven for two </span>
  <em>
    <span>hours</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and grabs a puzzle on her way back out to the porch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s way too hyper for puzzles, but his mother loves them, and she’s used to him jumping off the porch into the backyard to pick flowers or do cartwheels or whatever. It’s in one of his sitting spells, fidgeting in the chair across from her, that he works up the courage to ask:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Mom? When…did it happen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t ask what he means, just gives him a wry smile and plucks the puzzle piece he’s playing with out of his hand and into its place on the board.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Norman moved out seven months ago,” she says. “But it was only finalized last week. That’s why yesterday…temperatures were running high.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And Dad had—an affair?”</span>
</p><p><span>His mother grimaces. He remembers her words from last night—</span><em><span>forget I said anything</span></em><span>,</span> <span>and </span><em><span>I don’t want you to dislike your father. </span></em><span>He realizes she isn’t going to answer.</span></p><p>
  <span>“You couldn’t forgive him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He means it as a real question, honestly curious, and is glad that that’s the way she takes it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not so much that I </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she says after a moment, sounding almost thoughtful, “as that I didn’t want to. Not when he told me he wasn’t going to leave her.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In a way, I’m almost…grateful he said that. He was honest with me, at least. At </span>
  <em>
    <span>last</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Her voice is soft, and her eyes are focusing on something far away that only she can see. “We had been falling out of love for years, but I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to stay angry if he hadn’t said that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Sora says, frowning. He’d always been taught that forgiveness is the bravest choice there is, but maybe sometimes it’s more complicated than that. And then again, what does </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>know? He hadn’t even noticed his parents falling out of love. “Are you going to start teaching again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hums.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I don’t have to work, at least for another few years. Norman was—” she stops. “The divorce settlement was </span>
  <em>
    <span>extremely </span>
  </em>
  <span>generous. I suppose I’ve always wanted to write. And to travel. To see far away places and write it all down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That sounds fun,” Sora says, resting his chin on his hands. Not too different from what he wants to do, actually. Well, minus the writing part. “You should do whatever makes you happy, Mom. You deserve to be happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leans over to ruffle his hair, and he can’t help but grin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Are </span>
  </em>
  <span>you happy?” he asks, realizing he doesn’t know the answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he never did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right now? No.” The answer is simple and clean. “But I will be. Ray Segara—Riku’s dad—actually recommended someone to me. A therapist. I have an appointment with her next week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>great</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mom,” Sora says, putting all the conviction he feels into the words, and she gives him a true grin—one full of humor and mischief, not just love or relief. It’s the first he’s seen since he’s been home. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am so glad you’re back, darling boy,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then, in spite of how much </span>
  <em>
    <span>better</span>
  </em>
  <span> she’d seemed that morning, as it gets closer to 4—the time they’d agreed his dad would come pick him up—she becomes quiet and closed off. In the end, she says goodbye to him early and goes to shut herself in her room. Her room is at the back of the house, where she has no chance of involuntarily seeing his father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After she goes up, he spends a few minutes in the entryway before grabbing his bookbag and going to wait outside. He’s sitting on the front steps, drumming a nervous rhythm on his knees, when his dad pulls in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that all you’re bringing?” his dad asks when Sora slings his backpack down in the front seat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. It’s only a weekend, Dad,” he reminds him as they pull out of the driveway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows now that his father lives on the other side of the Big Island, in the financial district. It’s about a 45-minute drive, longer with traffic, and the closest thing Destiny Islands has to a real city.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll swing by Mega Mall on our way to pick up Zoe,” his dad tells him once they’ve been in the car for a few minutes. Sora blinks. So Zoe’s the name of his…new girlfriend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mega Mall?” he asks. It’s near the center of the island, and also the biggest mall he’s ever seen. Probably the biggest mall anywhere </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where she works. She’s a hair stylist.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” he says. He realizes he doesn’t have anything to say to that and looks down at his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So…” his father says. It’s a few minutes later. Sora’s been staring out the window, watching the buildings get taller as they make their way across the island. “I heard the Segara kid is back, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku,” he corrects automatically.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s quiet for a minute, and Sora wonders if that’s all he wanted to say. But then:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So…he was with you then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora considers it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he says finally. It seems easier than explaining chasing him across the worlds </span>
  <em>
    <span>twice</span>
  </em>
  <span>, separated by a year he doesn’t remember where he was asleep in an egg.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad makes a noise, like a sharp intake of breath, and Sora turns to him, frowning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He didn’t…” his father clears his throat. “He didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything to you, did he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He puts a bizarre emphasis on the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Sora tries to hide his eye roll. He’s always been </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrible </span>
  </em>
  <span>at figuring out what people mean when they say stuff like that. His dad should remember that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Do</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father is gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles are white.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Assault you,” he grinds out, and Sora takes a sharp breath as he remembers Monstro and Neverland, armor made of darkness and weapons made for stealing hearts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks down, heart hammering in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mutters. Then, because his father is </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>going to be satisfied with just that: “It wasn’t his fault. </span>
  <em>
    <span>None </span>
  </em>
  <span>of it was his fault.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason, that doesn’t seem to make his dad feel any better, and there’s a tense silence between them for almost ten minutes. Finally, when Sora can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>take </span>
  </em>
  <span>it anymore, he asks the one question sure to always get a reaction, no matter what.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’s the blitzball season going?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father relaxes almost immediately, and the topic carries them safely through until they pull up in the Kiss and Ride lane of Mega Mall. There’s plenty of people standing on the sidewalk, waiting for their rides, and idly, Sora scans them, wondering which one—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s not sure what makes him so certain, but he knows in his </span>
  <em>
    <span>bones </span>
  </em>
  <span>that that’s her. From this distance, all he can see is she’s wearing a purple sweater dress with a leather jacket over it, even in the perennial Destiny Islands heat, and that she has a shock of blonde hair grazing her shoulders. As she gets closer, he’s able to see more: high-heeled boots, black leather bag, thick makeup. She’s surprisingly old—at least his father’s age. Maybe older. He realizes he’d been imagining someone young and pretty, like Melissa. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she gets near enough, he grabs his bag and hops out of the front seat, holding the door open for her to slide in. She gives him a stony look, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stomach sinking, he gets into the back seat. Zoe kisses his father and murmurs something to him, but still doesn’t say anything to Sora. As soon as they start driving again, she turns to face out the window, shoulders squared, obviously tense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes Sora about a </span>
  <em>
    <span>minute </span>
  </em>
  <span>to work out that Zoe is painfully, </span>
  <em>
    <span>cripplingly </span>
  </em>
  <span>shy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pretending he’s talking to his father, Sora launches into a long, rambling story, eyeing Zoe through the rearview mirror the whole time. Internally, he cheers every time she smiles at one of his jokes, proving that she’s listening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tells them about playing with Margi and Ray-Jay, partly because everyone likes hearing about kids, and partly because it’s the only safe thing he has </span>
  <em>
    <span>to </span>
  </em>
  <span>say. By the time he gets to the part of the story where Margi wanted to throw Ray-Jay overboard to make their pirate tea party vessel go faster, Zoe is honest-to-God </span>
  <em>
    <span>laughing</span>
  </em>
  <span>, hiding her smile behind one of her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s ten after five by the time they pull into a parking garage and his dad turns the car off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All righty,” he says, pulling the emergency brake and locking the steering wheel. “Our reservation’s at 6, so we’ve got about an hour to kill.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora makes a face as he climbs out of the car, but only when he’s absolutely sure his father can’t see. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No one </span>
  </em>
  <span>on the Islands eats dinner so early, except grandparents and babies and—apparently—his father. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They use up their time by walking down to the pier. The beach on this side of the island feels completely different from the one on </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>side. Here, there are yachts and fancy hotels and “restaurants with a view” and all kinds of things. It can be fun, coming down here, particularly around Christmas when they set up the bazaar, but privately, Sora prefers the </span>
  <em>
    <span>other </span>
  </em>
  <span>beach—</span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>beach—with the boardwalk and the canoes and the clam shack and Tony’s ice cream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They wander around, his father talking about work, mostly. Sora’s zoning in and out—he’s programmed his brain to switch to other things as soon as he hears words like </span>
  <em>
    <span>client</span>
  </em>
  <span>, or </span>
  <em>
    <span>deposition</span>
  </em>
  <span>, or </span>
  <em>
    <span>subpoena—</span>
  </em>
  <span>but he notices how interested Zoe is in all of it, asking him questions, giving opinions, making his father laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With about ten minutes left in the hour, his father herds them west, towards one of the restaurants with a view. He holds the door open for Zoe and Sora, then follows them inside, giving his name at the hostess booth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora feels his eyebrows creep into his hairline. This place is…</span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>fancy. Most of the tables are already filled, despite how early it is, and Sora’s ridiculous, poofy adventuring gear looks even more out of place than normal against all the people in suits and dresses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No wonder their reservations were so early, Sora thinks as they sit down, and then again when he begins reviewing the menu, wide-eyed. There are five different courses listed, and this is probably the kind of place where service takes </span>
  <em>
    <span>forever.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He orders the crab bisque for his soup, mostly because that’s what his father orders, even though the price makes his palms sweat. But he forgets that as soon as the soup comes, partly because it’s delicious, but mostly because as soon as he’s put the spoon in his mouth, Zoe leans over and asks him how it is, and it’s the first thing she’s said to him all evening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>great</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” he says, as soon as he’s able to swallow—and </span>
  <em>
    <span>ack</span>
  </em>
  <span>, it’s hot, he can feel it burning his esophagus on the way down. “How’s yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s wonderful,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You haven’t tried it,” Sora realizes out loud, and then winces, because saying something you haven’t tried yet is delicious is a classic behavior of the chronically shy. Riku does it all the time, and gets </span>
  <em>
    <span>super </span>
  </em>
  <span>flustered if you point it out. But she’s still looking at him, and that soft smile is still on her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I know,” she says. “But I love the bouillabaisse here. This is my favorite restaurant,” she offers shyly, fiddling with her spoon. “I suggested we come here tonight. Because it’s a celebration. You’re finally home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora feels his face getting hot, and decides right then and there that he is going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking love this restaurant if it fucking kills him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spends the rest of the meal—and he had been right, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>long—drawing Zoe out of her shell. He realizes quickly that she’s more comfortable listening to him than she is with talking herself. So Sora does. It doesn’t even bother him that he can’t really say anything about the past year, because he has a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lifetime </span>
  </em>
  <span>of stories that Zoe hasn’t heard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re eating dessert, and Sora is telling Zoe the story of when he, Riku, and Kairi had planned a secret sleepover on the play island one summer. They had pretended like they were leaving to go out and play like normal that morning, but they had all agreed to take some </span>
  <em>
    <span>supplies </span>
  </em>
  <span>from home while their parents weren’t looking.</span>
</p><p><span>“So we end up with a packet of tuna, a tub of kool-aid powder, and 20 AA batteries,” Sora is telling her while Zoe giggles helplessly. “And </span><em><span>finally</span></em><span>,</span> <span>to top it all off, it starts </span><em><span>raining</span></em><span>,</span> <span>and the stupid tree house has a hole in its roof. So the three of us are huddled under the blanket, shivering, and </span><em><span>finally </span></em><span>Kairi says, ‘Maybe we should just go home, you guys,’ and </span><em><span>of course </span></em><span>that’s exactly what me and Riku had been wanting to do, but we hadn’t said anything because we didn’t want to sound like wimps…”</span></p><p>
  <span>“Girls </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>tend to have the monopoly on good sense at that age,” Zoe says, still laughing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At </span>
  <em>
    <span>every </span>
  </em>
  <span>age,” Sora says, thinking of every world he’s ever visited, but especially his own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you and Kairi and Riku seem really close,” Zoe says, resting her chin in her cupped hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yup!” Sora says, spooning his last bite of chocolate mousse into his mouth. He wiggles a little from how good it is. “We’re best friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All three of you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep—always have been, always will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s great,” Zoe sighs. “Threes can be hard. I’m one of three children—two girls and a boy—and it always seemed like someone was getting left out, no matter how hard we tried.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, we aren’t like that,” Sora says with a confidence he absolutely does not feel, particularly when he reviews the events of the last year in his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s probably easier when you’re not related,” Zoe says, smiling. “As long as two of you don’t fall in love—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waiter?” his father cuts in curtly. “The check, please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s nearly nine by the time they leave the restaurant, and early as it is, Sora is drooping by the time they get to the car. He doesn’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because all he did today was talk to his mom and Zoe. Maybe it’s just his body reacting to nothing trying to kill him for once. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He perks up in spite of himself when they get to his dad’s building. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice</span>
  </em>
  <span>—one of those highrises with a fancy lobby and balconies on every unit. The elevator has buttons on it marked </span>
  <em>
    <span>fitness center </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pool</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Sora can’t wait to try them out.</span>
</p><p><span>Once they get up to it, the unit itself is…not nice. No, he corrects himself, not wanting to be mean or unfair, even in the privacy of his own mind. But…it reminds him a little of how Riku’s house looked right after the first Mrs. Segara died. Mr. Segara had sold most of the furniture, except for the stuff in Riku’s room, to pay for the funeral. He remembers his mom arguing with him about it, trying to convince him to let them help. Remembered the way she’d sounded when she’d said, “Good </span><em><span>God</span></em><span>,</span> <span>Ray, I loved her </span><em><span>too</span></em><span>.”</span></p><p>
  <span>He shakes the memory away. He’s not even supposed to remember that. He had been seven at the time, young enough to be clinging to his mother’s hand as the adults talked. He was supposed to be too young, too hyper to understand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With an effort, he turns his attention back to the apartment. The walls are white, the carpet a sad beige. The front room has a drab gray sofa, a media console with a TV and speakers, and…that’s basically it. There are a few pictures on the walls, but they feel impersonal, like the ones that come inside the photo frames you buy at the store. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry it’s a little small,” Zoe says, sounding nervous, and Sora wonders how much of his emotions have shown on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s great,” he says, schooling his face into a smile. His heart lightens when she returns it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re looking for a bigger one now, of course,” she says. “We want you to have your own room when you come to stay, but for now, the sofa’s a pull-out…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s great,” he says again, more firmly this time, and this time she seems to believe him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re all tired, and by unspoken agreement don’t linger together in the front room, instead taking turns in the bathroom getting ready for bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Sora returns from his shower, towelling his hair dry, the sofa bed has been made up for him, and Zoe is perched at its foot, wearing a set of his dad’s pyjamas and a waddy purple bathrobe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your dad and I are going to turn in,” she tells him, standing up. She’s wearing purple bunny slippers, too, and they make him smile. “We’re old. We go to bed early.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the first time she’s tried a joke for him, and he laughs, more from happiness than from finding it funny.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The walls are kind of thin, but if you keep the volume low, you should be able to watch TV without disturbing us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She points out the remote, then shifting her weight, says: “And there’s a phone in the kitchen. If you want to call someone. I know sometimes, trying to fall asleep in a new place…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cuts herself off, like she said more than she meant to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Sora says, and means it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sweet dreams,” she murmurs, padding into the bedroom and shutting the door behind her before he can respond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t expecting to feel so </span>
  <em>
    <span>alone</span>
  </em>
  <span> after she left. As soon as he is, the fears and doubts begin whispering to him again, some faint, some loud, some raucous, some wheedling. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This </span>
  </em>
  <span>is why Sora hates being alone, is always on the move, making friends, chasing laughter and excitement. This was always a part of him, these unspoken fears and insecurities, but they’ve become so much </span>
  <em>
    <span>worse </span>
  </em>
  <span>lately, since he heard those </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking </span>
  </em>
  <span>words. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I didn’t want you to find me. I didn’t want to be found.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He curls up on the bed, throwing his arms over his head, </span>
  <em>
    <span>daring </span>
  </em>
  <span>himself to cry, to be as weak as he always is. More than anything, he wants to go into the kitchen and punch the numbers for Riku’s house into the phone and talk until his voice is </span>
  <em>
    <span>hoarse… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But he won’t. He’s strong enough. He’s strong enough on his own. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. In the Mall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Riku and Kairi go shopping.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Kairi had told him she’d pick him up at ten o’clock </span>
  <em>
    <span>sharp</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and she’d said it with such intensity that Riku had set his alarm for nine even though he </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>gets up before that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like he’d expected, his body jolts him awake at six, and he groans at the shock of adrenaline that always thrums through him when he’s tipped backwards out of sleep. He jacks off, just to take the edge off, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost </span>
  </em>
  <span>manages to keep himself from imagining Sora as he does. But at the last second, his traitorous brain supplies an image of Sora’s sparkling blue eyes, corners crinkled up in a smile, and he comes with a groan all over his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a shower to clean himself off, enjoying the way the water feels against </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>body, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>frame, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>shoulders and back and legs. He shivers involuntarily, trying not to remember how deeply disturbing it had been to wash himself when he’d looked like Ansem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s feeling self-indulgent, so he takes his time with washing his hair, massaging the shampoo into his scalp, even though the only kind he can find is the bubblegum-scented bottle for babies and toddlers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s still a hair dryer under the sink from before he left, and he blows out his hair rather than letting it drip dry. He wrinkles his nose at how cloyingly </span>
  <em>
    <span>sweet </span>
  </em>
  <span>the baby shampoo has made it smell, but on the plus side, it did leave it feeling </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He puts his adventuring gear back on, looking forward to having something </span>
  <em>
    <span>else </span>
  </em>
  <span>to wear after today, and heads to the kitchen for breakfast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad’s still at the table, reading the paper over a cup of coffee, but he has one eye on Margi and Ray-Jay who are plopped in front of the TV in the next room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melissa?” he asks, pouring some coffee for himself and putting frozen waffles in the toaster.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Groceries.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow, Riku ends up on the floor of the sitting room with the kids instead of at the table with the adult. He’s starting to get the hang of the pattern of Margi’s moods. Early in the day, she’s cuddly and affectionate, climbing into his lap without asking permission and babbling at him sleepily. It’s how he likes her best.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ray-Jay still terrifies him, despite Sora’s, Melissa’s, and his father’s assurances that babies are sturdier than they look. He flatly refuses to hold him </span>
  <em>
    <span>at all </span>
  </em>
  <span>unless there’s another adult in the room to supervise him. But watching cartoons with the two of them, not worrying that he can’t understand a word Margi says when she’s mumbling like this, makes Riku feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>at home </span>
  </em>
  <span>in a way he usually only does with Sora.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melissa gets home at half past nine, arms laden with groceries and grumbling that the store was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>zoo</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He helps her with the groceries, a little surprised to find his dad still at the kitchen table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Saturday and Sunday are half days for me,” he explains when Riku asks, more talkative after his second cup of coffee. “I work Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once the groceries are safely put away, Riku loads his breakfast things into the dishwasher and wipes down the counters, forgetting about the time until he hears a car horn from out front.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyebrows crawl into his hairline when he goes to look out the window. There’s a red McQueen convertible pulled halfway up the drive, and in the driver’s seat is Kairi.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The horn honks again, and his father joins him at the window, frowning at the commotion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku,” his father says. “How old is K—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you, bye!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku throws his sponge in the sink and barrels for the door. He runs into Melissa in the entryway, and his heart sinks. She’s not as easy to deal with as his father. Before she can open her mouth, he blurts:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Going to the mall, with Kairi, eating lunch there, be home for dinner, put on sunscreen already, bye!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mouth drops open and Riku uses the footwork from a double-pivot forward slash to get around her and out the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It might just be his panicked brain playing tricks on him, but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>thinks</span>
  </em>
  <span> he hears a peal of laughter ring out before he gets the door closed behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>doing</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he snarls, vaulting over the car door and into the passenger seat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Boo, calm down,” Kairi says. She’s wearing sunglasses and sucking on a lollipop, which she pulls out of her mouth with a wet pop and offers to Riku.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gags, which makes her laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I already passed my driver’s test and everything, I’m just waiting until I turn 16 so I can get my license.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just drive,” Riku moans, burying his face in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In spite of himself, as the minutes pass and they </span>
  <em>
    <span>still </span>
  </em>
  <span>haven’t died, he begins to relax. Kairi appears to know what she’s doing, elbow leaning casually on the driver’s side door and humming along to the radio. And…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, if he’s being honest, it looks a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot </span>
  </em>
  <span>easier than flying a gummiship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time they get to Mega Mall, they’ve heard the same few songs on the radio enough times that Riku can hum along with Kairi when they come on, and Kairi has relented and showed Riku where she keeps the lollipops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The parking lot is practically full when they pull in, and Kairi ends up in the farthest section, tentatively trying to maneuver the sporty little McQueen into the last available spot, between a poorly parked Minny minivan on one side and a </span>
  <em>
    <span>massive </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hudson sedan on the other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want me to try?” Riku asks on her third failed attempt. She gives him a scathing look, but she is truly flustered. Circling cars keep pulling up behind them, like they think she’s trying to pull out of the spot rather than pull into it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fine</span>
  </em>
  <span>, if you think you can do any better,” she snaps, when she nearly takes the Hudson’s side mirror off on her fourth attempt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They switch places, and Riku takes a second to review the controls, which </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>a lot simpler than a gummiship’s. He gets it on the first try and gives Kairi a big, shit-eating grin, and she responds with some choice cusses that the mayor </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>does not know she knows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” Kairi says when they get in the building. “Where to first?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh…” Riku says intelligently. It’s not that he’s never been here before, but…he’s never really </span>
  <em>
    <span>bought </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything here before except overpriced food at the food court. Also…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot </span>
  </em>
  <span>of people here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kairi grabs his hand and gives him a sympathetic smile, and Riku feels his chest go warm at how easily Kairi can go from teasing to perfectly serious in the blink of an eye and a fluttered, half-felt change of mood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s…a really, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> good friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How about this,” she says, pushing him so they’re not blocking the entrance anymore and peering at a directory. “How do you want to </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like a teenager,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Really</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Kairi says. “I figured for sure you were going to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>mature </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>adult</span>
  </em>
  <span> or something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku shifts his weight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I don’t want to look like a </span>
  <em>
    <span>kid</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he says. “But…I want to look my age. What’s in style anyways?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kairi rubs her hands together and gets that special glint in her eyes that only appears when she’s dreaming up mischief or thinking about clothes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their first stop is Ed Hardy, but Riku turns his nose up at the psychedelic patterns and weird, bulky cuts. Then Kairi drags him to a Zoomies, which just makes him feel overwhelmed. The couches and loud music and screens everywhere are too distracting for him to actually notice any of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>clothes</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Rolling her eyes and calling him an </span>
  <em>
    <span>old man </span>
  </em>
  <span>and a </span>
  <em>
    <span>beach rat</span>
  </em>
  <span>, they next try a Cap Sun, which is better. Riku gets two new pairs of swim trunks—his old ones are currently sitting in the Give to Sora pile on his bedroom floor—and a couple of tank tops that look like t-shirts whose arms have been cut off by Margi. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kairi assures him they’re supposed to look that way, it’s the style, and if </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>had biceps like his she’d show them off every </span>
  <em>
    <span>day</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which makes him laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deciding that it matches Riku’s “surfer aesthetic,” she frog-marches him to a Jollister after they’ve paid at Cap Sun. Riku goes pink when he notices the shirtless model in front of the store, pointedly looking away when he </span>
  <em>
    <span>winks </span>
  </em>
  <span>at Kairi.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or maybe at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But probably Kairi.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He and Kairi spend almost an hour there, picking out stuff for him to try on and squabbling over cuts and colors. He gravitates naturally towards loose t-shirts and cargo pants, because they tick all the boxes for mobility and comfort in combat situations, but Kairi makes him try on some tighter-fitting shirts and a pair of skinny jeans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The jeans are…</span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>tight, he thinks, blushing to himself in the dressing room. Particularly in the…crotch area. He almost takes them off without even showing Kairi, but he knows if he does that she’ll just make him put them right back on again so she can see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Damn</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Riku,” she says, giving him the once over and making a big show of crossing and uncrossing her legs and fanning herself with her hand. “Those are </span>
  <em>
    <span>hot</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You gotta get those.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, he gets two pairs of cargo pants, two pairs of skinny jeans, some deep, v-neck t-shirts, and a couple of hoodies. He winds up spending more than he means to, but he also now has an entire new wardrobe, so he doesn’t feel that bad about it. He just hopes he doesn’t keep </span>
  <em>
    <span>growing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Fun as picking them out was, he wants to be able to </span>
  <em>
    <span>wear </span>
  </em>
  <span>them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you enjoying yourself?” Kairi asks him over burgers at the food court. It’s a real question, not a play for reassurance like it would be from Sora, and he treats it like one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am,” he says, after examining his emotions carefully. “I always liked clothes and stuff.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t really need to tell Kairi that—she knows how much he loved playing dress-up as a kid, how fussy he is with his hair, and that more often than not, it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>dragging her and Sora to the mall, even though he never had the munny to buy anything—but it feels good to say out loud. “It’s fun imagining all the ways you can wear something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is, isn’t it,” Kairi says, sounding wistful, and Riku looks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s go shopping for you after this,” he says, helping himself to the last of Kairi’s fries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes a face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unlike you, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>don’t have any munny,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then let me pay for it.” After all, it only seems fair. Kairi and Sora spent most of their lives buying </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>things when </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was flat broke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She squinches her nose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That feels weird,” she says, and Riku likes the way she says it. She doesn’t try to explain </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>it feels weird, which would give Riku the opportunity to argue with her, she just…says how she feels.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he can learn to do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kairi sighs again, looking off to the side, and when Riku follows her gaze he sees she’s staring longingly at the Forever 17.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How about this,” Riku says, fiddling with his straw, remembering a game they used to play when they were younger. “Why don’t I pick out the things for you to try on, and if I like something enough, I’ll buy it for you. Think of it as an I’m-sorry-I-missed-your-birthday present.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He almost says an </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m-sorry-I-tried-to-kill-you </span>
  </em>
  <span>present, but decides that it’s…too soon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kairi’s eyes light up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You mean like when you used to dress me and Sora up when we played pretend?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, exactly.” Riku had always been the best at making Sora and Kairi look like a dragon and a knight, or a prince and a fairy godmother. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he’d just always been the best at pretending to be something he’s not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They split a sticky bun, even though they’re stuffed, then go into Forever 17, where Riku starts digging through the racks, laughing at Kairi’s color commentary. Some of the things he picks out because he thinks Kairi will look good in them, like a sky-blue sundress. Some he picks out because Kairi </span>
  <em>
    <span>obviously </span>
  </em>
  <span>loves them, like a shimmery purple top with a mesh back and a black distressed denim mini skirt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And some he picks out because they’re hideous and he wants to fuck with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs his ass off in the fitting room when he makes her try on a black-and-yellow striped popcorn sweater covered in puff balls made of </span>
  <em>
    <span>tinsel</span>
  </em>
  <span>, only laughing harder when Kairi balls it up and hits him in the face with it when she models the next thing. He’s tempted to get her the blue sundress, because he’s right, she looks </span>
  <em>
    <span>amazing </span>
  </em>
  <span>in it and she doesn’t wear nearly enough blue, but the look on her face when she tries on the purple shirt and black mini skirt together decides things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This outfit is </span>
  <em>
    <span>amazing</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” she squeals as Riku checks out, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Think I can convince Selphie to have a party so I have an excuse to wear it? Oh! I know!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grabs his hand and tows him to the other side of the mall—which is huge, so it’s a good 15-minute walk—until they get to one of those orange vending machines selling—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Temporary tattoos!” she squeals. “I’ll put one on my back when I wear the shirt so I look </span>
  <em>
    <span>edgy</span>
  </em>
  <span>. C’mon, Riku, help me pick one out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Won’t it just rub off against the mesh?” he asks, which is probably true but one of those things he should have kept to himself, because in addition to the rainbow compass she gets for herself, she buys an absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>hideous </span>
  </em>
  <span>skull-and-roses sleeve tattoo and threatens to apply it to him in his sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku’s starting to get muscle fatigue from walking so </span>
  <em>
    <span>slow </span>
  </em>
  <span>all day, so he collapses in one of the armless leather sofas by the escalators and sends Kairi off to get smoothies for both of them. While she’s gone, he arranges all their shopping bags next to him. They really…went a little overboard today.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Kairi gets back maybe 15 minutes later, thrusting a smoothie into Riku’s hand and curling up on the opposite side of the shopping bags, she launches into a story about how </span>
  <em>
    <span>cute </span>
  </em>
  <span>the girl at the smoothie place had been and how she’d been </span>
  <em>
    <span>older </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely</span>
  </em>
  <span> flirting with her, and she’d been tempted to give her her number but hadn’t because what if she wound up being some cute, smoothie-loving ax murderer, and Riku starts laughing helplessly, covering his face with his hands, and it occurs to him that he’s happier than he’s been in a long time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe ever.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So, in the notes, when I talked about this story being a love letter to coming of age in the thousands? I meant this chapter. I had SO MUCH fun twisting all the store names and falling back in time to when going to the mall on the weekend was a Thing.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. In Revelation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sora goes to the Blitzball Hall of Fame, Riku gets a haircut, and Sora learns his father did something terrible.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Zoe does her best to be quiet as she creeps from the bedroom into the kitchen the next morning, but Sora hadn’t slept well, so it’s still enough to wake him up. His face feels hot and prickly, like he’s been crying in his sleep, which he really hopes he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>doing, but when he checks his face in the bathroom mirror, it looks fine. Normal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He helps Zoe put the couch back together, then fixes himself toast for breakfast, humming out a mouth-full </span>
  <em>
    <span>good morning</span>
  </em>
  <span> when his father ruffles his hair in greeting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought we could go to the Blitzball Hall of Fame today,” he says after his second cup of coffee. “What do you think, kiddo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Sora says. He’s been to the Hall of Fame once or twice before, and it never left much of an impression on him other than that it reminded him of a museum, but his father sounds excited about it, which is good enough for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hall of Fame is close enough that they can walk to it, and Sora examines the street his dad lives on with interest. It only has four lanes, two going each way, but the sidewalks on either side are as big as another lane of traffic again, and the buildings have to be at least 20 stories tall. It makes him feel even shorter than normal, but neither Zoe nor his father seem to feel it as being oppressive, so he busies himself looking into the shop windows that they pass, marveling at the expensive brands on display.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The buildings thin out as they get closer to the beach, and they follow Ocean Shore Drive for maybe five minutes, sea to their right and skyline to their left. It’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span> beach day, Sora thinks longingly, taking in the perfect temperature, the slight breeze, and the mild waves that are </span>
  <em>
    <span>just </span>
  </em>
  <span>the right height to play in without being knocked around. He wonders if Riku and Kairi are at the beach today, and pushes down on a wave of envy before he can really feel it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His memory turns out to be correct. The Hall of Fame </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>basically just a museum, with different exhibits on the great blitzball plays and players through the ages. Sora’s not that into it—he likes </span>
  <em>
    <span>playing </span>
  </em>
  <span>blitzball, but he never got into watching it or rooting for a specific team or whatever—but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>interested to see a little exhibit on Tidus’s father, who apparently was named MVP of the League last year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe isn’t particularly interested either. Her eyes glaze over about three minutes in, in that way Sora recognizes from trying to talk to Kairi about comics, but his dad keeps up a steady stream of enthusiastic commentary, and doesn’t seem to need anything other than the occasional, vague, “Mm,” from Zoe to keep him going.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After about an hour, Sora’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>antsy, and after almost two he’s started jiggling in place and tapping on stuff in the way that his father always scolds him for but that he can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>help </span>
  </em>
  <span>sometimes. He’s just about to tell his dad he needs to pee so he can go to the food court and find some gum or something when a shrill chirping starts up. It takes a second for Sora to recognize the sound of his dad’s pager.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, shoot,” his dad mutters, pulling it off his belt and squinting at it in the dim light. “Hold on, I need to find a pay phone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There were some by the entrance,” Zoe says, and they set off, his dad marching ahead while Sora and Zoe trail behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The phone call only takes about a minute, and then his dad turns back to them, looking grumpy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, guys,” he says, sighing. “I’m gonna need to go into work after all. A case we thought was settling out of court—well…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can meet up with us for dinner, if you’re finished by then,” Zoe offers, squeezing his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, okay, kiddo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, Dad,” Sora says, smiling at him. “Don’t worry about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe sighs as his dad leaves, and Sora thinks it’s half fond and half exasperated, kind of like how Riku sounds whenever Sora gets himself in trouble by doing something dumb. Then she turns to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora looks at the ground and kicks his foot, embarrassed. He’s grateful to the good fairies, but all-black with a bunch of yellow and red criss-cross belts aren’t really discreet enough to wear multiple days in a row.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really have anything else that fits,” he admits. “I keep meaning to ask Riku if he has any hand-me-downs for me, but I haven’t gotten the chance yet…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then do you want to go get some new clothes?” Zoe asks. “Or we could finish the Hall of Fame, if you prefer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora doesn’t particularly like shopping, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> sounds better than being cooped up in here any longer. Zoe must be able to see the answer on his face—or she already knew it and had just been teasing him—because she laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go back home and grab my car. We’ll get lunch on the way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stop for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall burger place in a run-down strip mall, which surprises Sora after the previous night’s fancy restaurant. At first, he’s a little worried about being able to find something he can eat, but they have a portobello mushroom burger on the menu which turns out to be decent, and the cheese fries are </span>
  <em>
    <span>amazing</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aren’t they the </span>
  <em>
    <span>best</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Zoe gushes when Sora mentions it. “Best cheese fries anywhere on the Islands.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You seem to know all the best restaurants,” he says, polishing off his food and then eating the last of Zoe’s fries when she offers them to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she says. “Occupational hazard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of being a hairdresser?” Sora asks, not thinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of being an escort.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The answer is unflinching, and Sora slows his chewing and swallows carefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry,” Zoe says. “I know why you’re worried. Your dad wasn’t my client. I was his.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s eyebrows snap up. His dad is a criminal defense lawyer. A criminal defense lawyer specializing in </span>
  <em>
    <span>violent </span>
  </em>
  <span>crime. Most of his clients don’t…seem like they’d be Zoes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can probably find the news story on the internet,” she says. She’s still smiling, but her voice is soft now, and a little sad. “I don’t like talking about it, but I don’t mind if you know. It was just…important for me to tell you. That you’re dad didn’t…He’s a good man. He believes in second chances for people.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He may not have hired an escort, but he still had an affair</span>
  </em>
  <span>, part of him says, but he shoves it down. It’s not a particularly helpful thought right now. Instead, because it seems like something Zoe </span>
  <em>
    <span>needs </span>
  </em>
  <span>right now, he reaches out and squeezes her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe smiles bright, then ducks her head, and Sora pretends not to notice as she daubs at her eyes with a tissue. He clears the table for them, and by the time they go back to the car, Zoe’s face is completely put together, like an impenetrable disguise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turns out Zoe’s taking him shopping at the place she works. Mega Mall is always a zoo on Saturday afternoons, so Sora is amazed when she manages to find a parking spot in the first lot she tries, which makes her laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t work someplace without learning all the best shortcuts,” she tells him. “So, where do you usually get your clothes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora shrugs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tap, I guess,” he says, because he can’t exactly respond with </span>
  <em>
    <span>three semi-nutty good fairies who live in a tower with a cranky old wizard. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Zoe nods and leads the way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turns out to not be </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad. It takes him a couple tries to figure out what his size is now, but once he does, Zoe is happy to let him get three identical pairs of khaki cargo shorts and the same t-shirt in eight different colors. He also needs underwear, which Zoe asks him about without making him feel weird about it, and in the end they’re in and out of the store in thirty minutes, easy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want to see where I work?” Zoe asks, and Sora agrees with real enthusiasm. Now that the </span>
  <em>
    <span>shopping </span>
  </em>
  <span>is over, it’s fun to walk around the mall and see all the different people. There are families with strollers, and groups of teenagers, and older couples holding hands as they window shop. It’s nice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he hears a familiar laugh somewhere off to his side, and before he can stop himself, he takes off running. It probably has something to do with spending so much time searching for Riku, he’ll realize later. It’s like a conditioned response: hear Riku, must chase.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He only has to go a couple store fronts down before he sees where the laughter is coming from, and he slows to a walk. He smiles at what he sees. Riku is draped over one of those uncomfortable mall sofas, and it </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>wasn’t designed for someone as tall as Riku in mind. He’s sunk bonelessly down into it, and he looks like a relaxed, content Riku-puddle. He looks happy. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Really </span>
  </em>
  <span>happy. Almost more happy than Sora’s ever seen him, giggling helplessly at something the person next to him is saying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora blinks, then feels his face flush. He really is a doofus. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>person next to him</span>
  </em>
  <span> is Kairi, obviously, curled up sideways on the other side of the sofa with one leg tucked underneath her, waving her hands like she always does when she gets really excited about something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes his heart hurt a little bit to see them so happy like this. He tells himself it’s just because he’s spent so much time missing them over the past year. It has nothing to do with the way Riku is blushing a bit and biting his lip like he usually only does with </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Nope. Nothing to do with that at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Having fun without me, huh?” he says, announcing himself, and they both look up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they both sound so </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy </span>
  </em>
  <span>to see him that the pressure on his heart dissipates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least a little.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come here,” Riku says, moving to push the shopping bags that are arranged between the two of them onto the floor to make room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey! That’s my bag,” Kairi says, shoulder checking him, which sparks a shoving match between them that leaves them breathless and giggly and leaves Sora…bemused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d thought Riku didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>like </span>
  </em>
  <span>touching anymore. He’d thought he’d outgrown the wrestling and hand-holding and piggy-back rides and hugging. Now he only does those things if Sora really needs them, like the other night when they’d been walking home and he’d been a mess.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it must just be </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora </span>
  </em>
  <span>he doesn’t like touching anymore. Sora or…boys.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t like either thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon,” Riku says, patting the newly open space between them, and Sora shakes the heavy thoughts out of his head and plops down between his two best friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He puts an arm around each of them and closes his eyes, feeling a little clingy from missing them and </span>
  <em>
    <span>not from being jealous</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and smiles when Kairi cuddles into his side and Riku leans his head back against his arm, giving off a happy hum that sends tingles through his spine—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>click </span>
  </em>
  <span>from just in front of him, accompanied by a bright pop of light he can see even with his eyes closed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then there are three more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku stiffens next to him as Sora blinks his eyes open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, what the hell—” Riku begins, making as if to stand up, and Sora hurries to get there first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Guys, this is Zoe!” he says brightly. “Zoe’s my dad’s n—girlfriend.” He stumbles over the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>new</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because somehow it seems a little rude. “And Zoe, this is—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kairi and Riku right?” she says, nose crinkling in a grin. “I figured as much. You’re a friendly kid, but I didn’t think you’d run off to curl up with </span>
  <em>
    <span>strangers</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hands a glossy white square to Kairi, then another to Riku, and another to Sora. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You three looked so cute, I couldn’t resist,” she says. “They’re polaroids. I’m keeping the last one for me and Sora’s dad, if that’s okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course it is!” Kairi says, the first to recover, as usual. “And thank you for this. I’ll treasure it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Riku echoes, brushing the hair out of his face. “Thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora keeps glancing between Riku and Zoe, because Zoe keeps </span>
  <em>
    <span>staring </span>
  </em>
  <span>at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he finally asks when he can’t stand it anymore, and Zoe smiles at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” she says. “It’s just…your friend. He could use a haircut.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?” Riku says, looking up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zoe’s a hairstylist,” Sora explains.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh!” He reaches up to touch his hair self-consciously. “Yeah. I…guess you’re right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku and Zoe stare at each other for a second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want one?” she says finally. “A haircut, I mean. Sora and I have some time to kill, and the salon I work at is right over there, and…” she trails off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Riku says. He looks about as surprised to have said it as Sora is to hear it. “I do, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a beat of silence, broken by:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku’s getting a full-body makeover! Can we fix his face next?” from Kairi, which makes Sora laugh and Riku glower.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The four of them troop into the salon, which is the fancy kind with plants everywhere and massive displays of tiny bottles all over the place, all labeled </span>
  <em>
    <span>crème </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>serum</span>
  </em>
  <span> or whatever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zo!” the woman at the front desk calls out when she sees them. “I don’t have you down today. Where did all these kids come from?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This one’s Sora, Norman’s son. And the other two are his friends, Riku and Kairi. I’m gonna give Riku a haircut.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, he looks like he needs it,” the front desk lady says, making Kairi snort, and then her eyes go wide. “Waitasecond, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Like died-in-the-dark-hurricane Sora—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zoe, which station is yours?” Kairi interrupts brightly, leading the way towards the back of the salon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe gets Riku settled, then asks him: “Do you want a shampoo, or just the cut?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um…just the cut.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks a little flushed, and keeps glancing at Sora’s and Kairi’s eyes on him in the mirror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. And what length are you going for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shorter,” Riku says. “Like maybe…” he puts his hand kind of between his ear and his chin. “Like that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Really</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Sora says, mouth hanging open. Riku hasn’t had hair that short since he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>four</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “But your hair is so pretty! Why do you want to get rid of it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku ducks his head, then seems to steady himself and meets Sora’s eye in the mirror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to hide anymore.” The words are said quietly—so quietly he knows Zoe and Kairi didn’t hear it, so quietly he shouldn’t have been </span>
  <em>
    <span>able </span>
  </em>
  <span>to hear it, except it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Riku</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He blinks a few times, then turns to Zoe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s right,” he says. “That’s the perfect length for him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the style?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Layered, I guess?” Riku says. “Whatever you think suits.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe seems to relax as she works. Her shoulders loosen up and she talks more easily, chatting about music and the weather. But as Sora continues to watch her, he realizes that that’s not quite it—not entirely. Zoe is more relaxed, yes, but she’s also </span>
  <em>
    <span>acting </span>
  </em>
  <span>a bit, putting on a persona. One who’s bubbly instead of shy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora wonders if everyone can do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wonders if </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>ever does that, then shakes his head, surprised at the thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora thinks that Zoe’s about halfway done when Kairi taps him on the shoulder, jerking him out of his thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I gotta get home. I stole my dad’s car this morning and I have to get it back before he comes home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora blinks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> your dad’s car this morning—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See you, bye,” Kairi sing-songs, kissing the top of his head just to rile him up before dashing off. Sora frowns, but decides nothing good can come of pursuing it, so lets her go and turns back to watching Riku.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>loves watching Riku, but there’s something kind of…soothing and intimate about watching him get a haircut. It makes tingles start at the back of his head and run up and down his spine. He’s always loved Riku’s hair. Thinking about it makes his fingers itch to play with it, massage his scalp, run light fingers against his neck—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All done!” Zoe says, which is </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>lucky, because Sora has no intention of getting a hard-on in his dad’s girlfriend’s place of employment from watching his crush get a </span>
  <em>
    <span>haircut</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you think?” Riku asks, patting it nervously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It looks great, Riku,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll </span>
  </em>
  <span>say,” Zoe says. “Where’s Kairi?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, she had to go home,” Sora says, not mentioning the…other bit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Riku says, and for a split second, Sora feels a spear of </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely-not-jealousy</span>
  </em>
  <span> pierce his heart. “She’s my ride!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can drive you home,” Zoe offers. “Let me call Norman to see when he thinks he’ll get off work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes up to the front desk to use the phone at reception, while Riku studies his reflection in the mirror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>think?” Sora asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s different,” Riku says. “I think I like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, kids,” Zoe says, coming back to them and collecting her purse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up with Dad?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He just finished up. He said if we’re going to the reef side of the island anyways, he’ll meet up with us there for dinner. Tony &amp; Joe’s Steakhouse?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora makes a face. There’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing </span>
  </em>
  <span>he can eat there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Apparently it’s your father’s favorite. Sadly, we can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>have sophisticated palettes like the two of us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ride home—well, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span> for him, not until tomorrow night, but it feels like the ride home—is kind of quiet. Zoe offers to let them both sit in the back together, but both Sora and Riku were raised to think that’s kind of rude, so Sora sits up front with Zoe and Riku sits behind him. It makes it kind of hard to talk, so mostly Sora just stares out the window, watching it get dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” Riku says when they pull up at his house, struggling a little to get all his shopping bags out of the car. “Sora, you’re back with your mom tomorrow night, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe see you tomorrow, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cool. Nice to meet you, Zoe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You too!” Zoe calls out, waving at his retreating form.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your friends are really nice,” Zoe says, pulling out in the direction of La Corniche.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. They are,” Sora says, smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes them a while to find parking, and then they take a walk along the boardwalk to kill time until his dad gets there. Sora fills the silence by pointing out all the landmarks he’d mentioned in his stories. Zoe’s a good listener, laughing and gasping in all the right places, and the time passes quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad catches up to them on the boardwalk, and they walk to the restaurant together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony &amp; Joe’s Steakhouse is essentially a massive seaside shack, complete with driftwood floor, open walls, and thatched roof. Rather than a kitchen, there’s a giant, open grill in the center of the space. The restaurant is locally famous, partly because the food is really good, if you like meat, and partly because it’s a miracle the place has never burned down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora wrinkles his nose when he looks at the menu, and it’s his bad luck his father sees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s nothing here I want to </span>
  <em>
    <span>eat</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Sora whines.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe looks up, frowning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can stop somewhere else on the way home—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” his father says curtly. “Don’t baby him. Honestly, Sora, I thought you would have grown out of this save the whales nonsense by </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora sets his shoulders mulishly, and when the waitress comes, Sora pointedly orders only a baked potato, </span>
  <em>
    <span>daring</span>
  </em>
  <span> his father to say something about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>sigh and roll his eyes, but then he turns to Zoe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what did you two do today, my love?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words hit him like a slap in the face, because it’s something his dad used to always call his </span>
  <em>
    <span>mom</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, we got lunch at Juicy Delicious—that’s the burger place in Prince Plaza, remember? And then Sora needed new clothes, so we went to the mall for that. You’ll never believe who we ran into while we were there, either! Riku and Kairi were there, too, and—oh! Hold on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rummages in her purse, pulling out the now fully developed polaroid. She hands it to Sora first, because he hasn’t looked at his since before it developed properly. He feels a dopey grin stretch across his face and some of the tension drops out of his shoulders. It’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>good photo of the three of them, all squished together, all laughing. Although…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t realized it at the time—his eyes had been closed—but he and Riku are kind of turned towards each other, faces angled like they’re about to…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head. Nope, he’s seeing things. Wishful thinking mixed with baked-potato-for-dinner-induced regret. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hands the photo back to Zoe, who passes it to his father. He’s expecting him to smile or laugh or roll his eyes because they’re all being so </span>
  <em>
    <span>goofy</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father’s eyes go shuttered and hard. He passes it back to Zoe curtly and drums his fingers on the table. Zoe frowns at him, so it’s not just Sora who thinks he’s being weird, either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad, what’s—” he begins, but he doesn’t even get the whole sentence out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want you to see Riku anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora allows the words to filter through his brain several times before reacting, because he can’t believe he heard him right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want you spending time with Riku anymore,” his dad repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Norman, what—” Zoe echoes him, but his father raises a hand to cut her off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s bad news. It’s time you found some other friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora takes a long, slow breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not your decision,” he says, proud of how steady his voice is. “And what do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>mean </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’s bad news, anyways?” he can’t keep himself from adding, because no way, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no way </span>
  </em>
  <span>is he going to chase Riku across every world this side of the Walt Nebula just to have him be ripped away from him in </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tony and fucking Joe’s. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not—normal. He’s a bad influence.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora stares at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>How</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s...” his father looks down. “Sexually deviant.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He means gay. Sora had been sure to learn </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>euphemism, and all the other ones that applied to him. Sora’s mouth drops open, a strange ringing in his ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t just assume that about people,” Sora says, even though he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>in his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted so badly for something to be true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not an assumption.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, how do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said yourself he assaulted you—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t think you meant like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Sora wails, voice high and loud enough that he’s sure that people at other tables are looking at him. “Sure, he may have tried to kill me a few times, but I was kind of trying to kill him too, and then he </span>
  <em>
    <span>saved </span>
  </em>
  <span>me like </span>
  <em>
    <span>seven </span>
  </em>
  <span>times, so I figure we’re fucking even!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he realizes it’s not exactly the winning argument it had sounded in his head, and he waves his hand, as if trying to dispel the words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We went through…some hard stuff, Dad,” he says finally, when he’s a little calmer. “The important thing—the </span>
  <em>
    <span>only </span>
  </em>
  <span>important thing—is that Riku would never hurt me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>say</span>
  </em>
  <span> that, but you don’t know—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” his father says, setting his hands down on the table hard. “You want to know how I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> he’s deviant, how I know he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>dangerous</span>
  </em>
  <span>? I didn’t want to tell you, but I guess </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>think you’re an adult now, so I will. He wrote you a letter. A—</span>
  <em>
    <span>disgusting </span>
  </em>
  <span>letter, saying he was in love with you and that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was wrong but that he didn’t care and—encouraging you to become homosexual, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s ears are ringing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know that’s not how being gay works, right, Dad?” Sora says, even though his own voice sounds </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>far away right now, and that’s not even in the top ten list of most important things he needs to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, then—encouraging you to </span>
  <em>
    <span>experiment</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And who </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows </span>
  </em>
  <span>how much damage that would do to an adolescent boy—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When,” Sora says, brain finally catching up with at least one of the more important things he has to say. His voice punches right through his father’s, which at any other time, he’d be proud of, because his dad has </span>
  <em>
    <span>years </span>
  </em>
  <span>of experience being heard in case rooms and courtrooms to back him up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>When was this?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” he demands, when his father doesn’t say anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When you were thirteen,” his father finally says. “Too young—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Sora isn’t listening. Instead, he’s dropping back in time, back through his memories, back to two years ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back to when Riku started becoming combative and distant, back to when he became angry all the time, back to when he stopped touching Sora, back to when his eyes became clouded with—with </span>
  <em>
    <span>shame </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>anger </span>
  </em>
  <span>whenever he looked at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t understood it then. He had been confused and scared—</span>
  <em>
    <span>and angry</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that voice whispers—only able to watch as Riku drifted further and further away from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d always wondered what he’d done </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span> that it was so easy for Maleficent to manipulate Riku. Wondered what he’d done to make Riku believe that Sora could </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span> abandon him. To make him believe he wasn’t the most important person in his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But of course that would be easy for Riku to believe. How could it </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>be, when from his point of view, he’d told Sora he </span>
  <em>
    <span>loved </span>
  </em>
  <span>him, and Sora hadn’t even given him the courtesy of an honest rejection? When he’d told Sora he loved him, and Sora hadn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking acknowledged it. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The ringing in his ears is still building, except it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>ringing anymore, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>roaring</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How could you have done that?” he asks, voice blank.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did it to protect you!” his father snaps. “I would have stopped you from seeing him </span>
  <em>
    <span>then</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but your mother wouldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>let</span>
  </em>
  <span> me, and look where that left us! You gone for a year, returning </span>
  <em>
    <span>broken</span>
  </em>
  <span>, not even able to say where you’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>been</span>
  </em>
  <span>—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora finally recognizes the emotion coursing through him. He’s never felt it outside of battle before. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>rage </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>darkness</span>
  </em>
  <span>, screaming in his ear, urging him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>rip-tear-kill</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to pick up his keyblade so he can transform into a monster and </span>
  <em>
    <span>destroy-consume-devour</span>
  </em>
  <span> until there’s nothing left. </span>
</p><p><span>He’s shaking all over, clenching and unclenching his fist with the effort of not summoning his keyblade </span><em><span>right fucking here</span></em><span>,</span> <span>and suddenly he realizes that he can’t contain this, and if he doesn’t want to </span><em><span>kill </span></em><span>his </span><em><span>father</span></em><span>, he has to leave </span><em><span>right fucking now</span></em><span>.</span></p><p>
  <span>He pushes himself out of his chair, barely noticing when it topples over backwards behind him, then makes his way out of the restaurant, stumbling like he’s drunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He really only has one thought: he has to get to Riku.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. In Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sora makes a confession. Riku almost passes out.</p><p>Twice.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They’re eating dinner when the front door slams open so loudly that he jumps. A second later, a hand grabs his, and he’s bodily dragged from his chair, out of the room, and up the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, what—” he begins, but doesn’t get any further. As soon as they’re in his bedroom, Sora swings the door shut, then pulls out his keyblade and seals it completely. Then he turns around, grabs Riku by the front of the shirt, drags him down, and mashes their mouths together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes Riku’s brain a few seconds to catch up with what’s happening. As soon as he does, he grabs Sora by the shoulders and jerks him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora, what the </span>
  <em>
    <span>hell</span>
  </em>
  <span>—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My dad told me about the letter,” Sora blurts out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Riku says, not following.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The letter you wrote me! From when I was thirteen!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh. Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>shit</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His mind stalls out, but his body is already too far down the road towards full meltdown for that to save him from any of the symptoms. His mouth goes completely dry and his heart starts beating hard enough that it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>shaking </span>
  </em>
  <span>him. He takes a step back, then another, until the backs of his knees hit the edge of his bed and he sits down hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He what?” he whispers, praying he misunderstood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He opened it without telling me! He threw it away before I’d even </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen </span>
  </em>
  <span>it!” Sora says, following him step for step until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, too. “I didn’t know about it, Riku. You have to believe I didn’t know. You </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>to—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Sora’s leaning forwards, putting their mouths together again, only this time it’s slow and sweet. Riku shudders. He knows he should be happy—should be </span>
  <em>
    <span>overjoyed—</span>
  </em>
  <span>because it’s everything he’s ever wanted, but the only thing he can think is: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Please, God, no.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Not when it had finally stopped hurting. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sora,” he says, against his lips. When that gets no reaction, he pushes him away as gently as he can. “Sora, you have to stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s face crumples, and Riku’s heart feels like it’s caught in a vice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You…didn’t like it?” Sora asks, voice more uncertain that he’s ever heard it. It sounds wrong on him, and that shocks him into being honest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not that I didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>like </span>
  </em>
  <span>it. I just </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I’m not…I’m not strong enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora stares at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku looks at the wall behind him, out the window, at the bedspread. Anywhere that’s not his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For you to kiss me, and then to find out you didn’t mean it,” he tries to say, but it comes out as more of a whisper. “I couldn’t bear it. I’m not strong enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s silence, and it goes on and </span>
  <em>
    <span>on</span>
  </em>
  <span>—longer than Riku thinks is possible. A part of him wonders if Sora has fallen asleep or passed out, but he’s too chicken to lift his eyes to check.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then a warm palm, roughened from too many battles, settles against his cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why would I kiss you if I didn’t mean it?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know!” is Riku’s knee-jerk response. He licks his lips. “Because…Because you want to piss off your dad, or because you wonder if kissing a boy is different from kissing a girl, or because…you feel sorry for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last one he’d said so softly that even </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>almost couldn’t hear it. But Sora has an uncanny ability to always hear him. No matter what. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s hand slides down to Riku’s jaw, pressing up firmly until Riku’s forced to look at Sora’s neck, then his chin, then his nose—then finally into his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku,” he says. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes you </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>would</span>
  </em>
  <span>! A part of him rages. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You made me feel stupid and unimportant and </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>worthless</span>
  </em>
  <span>—and then it suddenly registers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> registers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora wouldn’t do that. Sora is oblivious and affectionate, but he cares about things like </span>
  <em>
    <span>true love </span>
  </em>
  <span>with a fierceness you normally only see in storybooks and video games. He cares about Riku the same way.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora </span>
  <em>
    <span>hadn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>done it. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sora hadn’t known about the letter. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And Sora had just been </span>
  <em>
    <span>kissing </span>
  </em>
  <span>him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku watches Sora’s face turn up into a shy smile, as if he can </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>Riku working it out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only if it’s true,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. “Only say it if it’s true, but please, Sora—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you, Riku,” Sora interrupts. “I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>in love </span>
  </em>
  <span>with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku stares at him. He doesn’t quite believe him yet, but he’s still in awe of how he can make saying something like that look so </span>
  <em>
    <span>easy</span>
  </em>
  <span>. There’s no anguish. No self-doubt. Just a simple, forthright declaration. </span>
  <em>
    <span>God</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Riku envies how he can do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well?” Sora prompts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you still love me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I—</span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Riku splutters. “Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course </span>
  </em>
  <span>I still—I love you more than </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span>—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. So can I please kiss you </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes Riku a second to process his words, particularly when his brain is </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>preoccupied right now with the glittering expression in his dawn-blue eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he does, Riku feels his own face splitting open in an </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiotic </span>
  </em>
  <span>grin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he says, because the joy in his chest is bigger than the disbelief. “Yeah, actually. You can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A second later, Sora has shoved his shoulders back against the headboard and is pressing their foreheads together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” he whispers. “Because I </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to feel close to you right now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This </span>
  </em>
  <span>first kiss is everything Riku could have ever wanted it to be. It’s soft and tender, and Sora’s lips are just barely parted against his own, and he feels his hot breath against his mouth on every exhale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Experimentally, Riku places his hands on Sora’s shoulders so he can guide him a little closer, feels himself shudder when Sora’s lips begin to work against his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Sora, who is </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing </span>
  </em>
  <span>if not determined when he has his heart set on something, works Riku’s mouth entirely open and starts tongueing him ruthlessly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku groans. He’s dreamt of this. Of sharing Sora’s breath, of tasting his tongue, of kissing until his lips are swollen. Part of him can’t believe this is real, thinks he still </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>dreaming. But he knows now that the dreams are pale compared to the reality. He couldn’t have dreamed the soft noises Sora’s making, little gasps and groans and low, guttural hums. He couldn’t have dreamed the way Sora would smell, an intoxicating mix of salt and surf and his coconut-scented shampoo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands slide down his shoulders to his arms, wanting him even closer, to wrap him up completely. Sora pulls away to pant in his face, and while Riku knows it’s to catch his breath, he allows himself to imagine it’s because he wants to be closer, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Moving slowly and carefully, and watching Sora with wide, tentative eyes, Riku lifts his feet off the floor so he can settle cross-legged on the bed. Sora’s mouth twitches up before his eyes glance down to Riku’s lips. Then he crawls forward and plops himself in Riku’s lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Riku’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>moron</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he doesn’t realize how hard he is until Sora’s ass presses down against him. He gasps and squinches his eyes shut, and his whole </span>
  <em>
    <span>existence</span>
  </em>
  <span> narrows to the way his dick rubs against the cleft of Sora’s ass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he groans, not sure what he’s trying to say, but knowing he has to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku,” is the soft response, and then Sora is kissing him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time it’s different. This feels…desperate and dangerous. Sora has a hand tangled in his hair, angling Riku down so he can thrust into his mouth with his tongue. Sora surges closer to get a better angle, and it brings their chests flush together. The change in position means Riku can feel the hot, blunt shape of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora </span>
  </em>
  <span>pressed into his belly, and it makes him </span>
  <em>
    <span>whimper</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which is embarrassing, and he’s harder than he’s ever been in his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, he doesn’t think he’s about to lose it, at least, and now he knows he’s not the only one who’s hard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands trail down Sora’s back, slipping across the fabric of his t-shirt, digging his fingers in at the spot where sweat is making it stick to the small of his back. Sora groans into his mouth and arches back into the feeling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just bad luck that Sora shifts so that their dicks are grinding together at the exact </span>
  <em>
    <span>second</span>
  </em>
  <span> that Riku’s hands find their way to his ass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit!” he barely has time to gasp before a flash of white bursts in front of his eyes and his head thunks back against the headboard. He clamps down on Sora </span>
  <em>
    <span>hard</span>
  </em>
  <span> while his hips pulse up against him, and is only distantly aware that Sora’s writhing, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He comes to slumped backwards against the headboard with Sora tracing featherlight designs over his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels himself begin to panic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” he whispers, eyes wide. “Sorry. I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>sorry—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In answer, Sora </span>
  <em>
    <span>giggles.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Then he leans forward to press little butterfly kisses against Riku’s neck that feel so good he loses his train of thought and ability to form words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be,” he murmurs, between kisses. “I liked it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another kiss. Then, softer:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I came, too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew that—he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>felt it happen</span>
  </em>
  <span>—but it makes him feel better to hear it said out loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tentatively—half of him still expecting that he’s going to be pushed away—Riku drapes his arms over Sora’s shoulders, drawing him into his chest. Sora sighs, happy and sleepy, and melts against him, while Riku buries his face in his hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s still anxious, but it’s harder to be overwhelmed by it with Sora serving as a human weighted blanket against his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you still panicking?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku winces, caught. How can Sora always </span>
  <em>
    <span>tell</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“M’not,” he tries, even though he knows it’s useless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Riku</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re fifteen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku can </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear </span>
  </em>
  <span>Sora roll his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Couple of things,” Sora says. “First of all, I’m only fifteen for like another two weeks. Second of all, I saved the world twice. That’s gotta be good for </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And third of all, we didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything except make out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And grind against each other until we came</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Riku thinks, but he knows better than to say it out loud. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And </span>
  <em>
    <span>fourth </span>
  </em>
  <span>of all, that’s not really what you’re worried about. What is it really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora is </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> annoying sometimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re…not quite yourself right now,” Riku admits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora snorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not wrong. I think I </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate </span>
  </em>
  <span>my dad. I’m not sure I </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to see him again. But what does that have to do with anything?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re feeling…vulnerable. I’m worried you’ll regret this. Tomorrow, or later, or…whenever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora huffs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, there’s nothing I can do to make you feel better about that </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I guess I’ll just have to reassure you that I </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>regret this tomorrow, or later, or whenever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku drops his lips to Sora’s hair again. He’s still a little anxious, but it’s getting better. Sora’s reassurance helped, a little, and Sora is satisfied enough with his explanation that he melts back into him with a happy hum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time passes. Riku’s not sure how much. Time doesn’t seem very important when he’s got Sora in his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Riku,” Sora says eventually.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know this is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> unsexy thing to say right now, but…my shorts are a mess, and I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>hungry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku snorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too,” he admits, dropping his arms so Sora can breathe. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Someone </span>
  </em>
  <span>didn’t let me finish my dinner.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who was that?” Sora asks, stretching out his arms. “He sounds like a brat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku laughs and pats Sora’s ass a couple of times, saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>up</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Sora demands a few more kisses, as if he’s making a point, but does eventually get off of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eugh,” Sora says, as soon as he’s standing. Riku stands too, and can only agree. The front of his pants are cold, wet, and sticky. “I’m gonna need to borrow some pants.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, actually,” Riku says. “I have some clothes I wanted to give you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hands Sora a t-shirt to clean himself off with from the “throw away” pile, and points out the “For Sora” pile so he can find something he wants to wear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He cleans himself off, too, dumping his adventuring gear in a dirty, guilty heap and pawing through his shopping bags for something to wear. He grabs the first things he finds and yanks the tags off the skinny jeans and t-shirt before putting them on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I turn around?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure!” Sora says brightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Riku says, rolling his eyes. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>meant </span>
  </em>
  <span>are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>dressed</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora laughs. “Yeah, I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku turns around to find Sora wearing a pair of his old shorts and Riku’s favorite hoodie from when he was younger. It makes his heart thump oddly in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile, Sora has turned bright red and has buried his face in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” Riku asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora mumbles into his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>said</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>hot</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he whines. Riku glances down and feels a slow smile spreading across his face. He could get used to that rush of warmth in his chest from Sora telling him he’s hot. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, what about you?” he says. Sora gives him a </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not hot,” he says flatly. “I weigh like 100 pounds.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>think you’re hot,” Riku says, grabbing him and pulling him into a hug, reveling in how he can surround him completely. “And besides, you must weight </span>
  <em>
    <span>at least </span>
  </em>
  <span>105 by now—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora pinches him, then shoves him away so he can summon his keyblade and unlock the door. Then he pulls Riku down the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melissa’s at the stove when they get to the kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing?” Riku asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She snorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m making—well, basically done making—mac and cheese for Sora. Riku, I put your dinner in the fridge. We had chicken for dinner,” she explains.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, man, thanks!” Sora says, popping out from behind him. Melissa turns to grin at him, then does a double-take.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh my God,” she groans. “You both </span>
  <em>
    <span>changed</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Could you </span>
  <em>
    <span>be </span>
  </em>
  <span>any more obvious?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku feels himself turning </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuschia</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and even Sora looks slightly self-conscious. Melissa just rolls her eyes, turning off the stove, muttering something that sounds like “</span>
  <em>
    <span>unbelievable</span>
  </em>
  <span>” under her breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Melissa leaves, Sora grabs the entire pot off the stove and sits down at the table with it, eating directly out of it with the wooden mixing spoon. Riku notices he’s keeping a close eye on him as he moves around the kitchen to reheat his food.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” he asks, when he sits down across from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora sighs, low and long, and Riku’s eyebrows snap up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t wanna go home,” he admits ruefully. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words make something glowing and pink, but also strangely sharp-edged, lodge in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So stay here tonight,” he says without thinking. The words are out of his mouth before he realizes what they might </span>
  <em>
    <span>imply</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he chokes on his food and has a coughing fit. Smooth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora is kind enough to ignore the mini-meltdown. He waits for Riku to catch his breath before saying:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? You don’t think your parents will mind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not,” Riku says, even though Melissa might. “I’ll go tell my dad so he knows.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad is lying on the couch in the living room, reading a magazine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad?” he says, knocking on the doorframe. “Sora’s going to stay here tonight. Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad looks up and frowns, and for one shocked moment, he thinks his dad is going to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, but remember that Margi and Ray-Jay are asleep across the hall, so don’t make too much noise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We won’t,” Riku says, for his own sanity choosing to believe his dad is talking about getting hyper on sleepover junk food and arguing too loud about comics.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is Sora okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku sighs. He goes to shove his hands in his pockets, forgetting how tight his pants are, and crosses his arms instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>mad at his father,” Riku admits. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, God,” his dad groans. “Norman’s not </span>
  <em>
    <span>still </span>
  </em>
  <span>hung up on that homophobic shit, is he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku snorts, then pretends he hasn’t. He wouldn’t have thought to put it like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but that is, essentially, the problem he has with Sora’s dad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he admits. “I think so. It sounds like it, at least.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad grimaces and goes back to his magazine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Julia is sensible, so I’m sure Sora will be fine, but tell him he can stay as long as he wants. Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Thanks, Dad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he returns to the kitchen, Sora has changed seats so he’s in the one next to Riku, rather than the one across from him. Taking the hint, Riku moves his chair as close to his as he can before sitting down, so that they’re almost squished together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’d he say?” Sora asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He said you can stay as long as you want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Sora perks up and feeds Riku a bite of his mac and cheese, like a sort of reward. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s still early, but after they clean up from dinner, they take turns getting ready for bed. Riku usually showers in the morning, but he takes another one anyways, in case he smells or something. He’s careful to keep his hair out of the shower spray, not wanting to mess it up when he just got it cut that day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora’s sitting on his bed when Riku gets back, wearing boxers and a loose-fitting t-shirt that shows so much collarbone it should be </span>
  <em>
    <span>illegal</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Riku looks away quickly, but it’s too late. The sight has been burned into his memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want the bed?” he asks as he’s composing himself, pretending his voice doesn’t squeak on the last word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only if you’re in it,” Sora says, then bursts out laughing at whatever he sees on Riku’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Relax,” he says, leaning back on his arms. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to. Share a bed!” he clarifies, eyes going a little wide. “To sleep! Just to sleep. Not—I didn’t mean—”</span>
</p><p><span>Thank </span><em><span>God </span></em><span>Sora is getting flustered, too. If he kept being so teasing and self-assured, Riku might start worrying about what experiences were behind</span> <span>all that confidence, and </span><em><span>neither </span></em><span>of them need any more run-ins with Jealous Asshole, Gay Disaster Riku.</span></p><p>
  <span>“I just miss sharing a bed,” Sora admits, cheeks pink. “Having you close. Like when we were little. I thought it would be nice—but I guess I’m being kind of clingy—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Riku says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora heaves a relieved sigh and throws back the covers, tucking himself back against the wall and patting the space next to him. Riku slides in beside him and lets Sora sling the comforter over his shoulders. He knows he’ll kick the blankets off in the night—sleeping with Sora is like sleeping with a human furnace—but for right now, lying on their sides, facing each other, sharing the same pillow, with the blanket wrapped around them, it’s like they have a cocoon of warmth and safety, just for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly their breathing deepens and evens out, and Riku </span>
  <em>
    <span>feels </span>
  </em>
  <span>the tension in his muscles melt away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Sora seems to be relaxing, too, but then Riku sees a strange look flick across his face, and he seems to tense up again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora reaches out and strokes a thumb over Riku’s lips, then across one eyebrow, finally coming to rest with his hand tracing the shape of his left ear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riku, will you promise me something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise you’ll never let me hurt you like that again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riku’s mind stalls out. It’s partly because he doesn’t want Sora to feel like </span>
  <em>
    <span>any </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the mess he’d made out of his life over the past couple of years is his fault—and it </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he’ll remind him of that </span>
  <em>
    <span>at great length </span>
  </em>
  <span>later—but mostly because he knows, in his heart of hearts, that he can’t make that promise. He’ll always accept everything Sora gives him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t promise that,” he whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora sighs, but he doesn’t stop touching him, and eventually he nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then promise me you’ll tell me. When I hurt you. Even if you think I won’t care.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was it. Sora laid it out so plainly, it was startling. Riku was used to feeling it as a tangled, snarled mass of darkness clawing at his heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For years, Riku had believed that Sora had </span>
  <em>
    <span>known </span>
  </em>
  <span>he had hurt him, and just didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>care. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t bear for this to happen again. It’s one thing when it’s distance or—or real necessity between us. But I can’t bear to think you’re feeling—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll help you,” Sora continues, like his voice didn’t just break. “I promise. You won’t have to do it alone. I promise that when I notice you hurting, I’ll ask about it, even if I think you’ll blow up at me, or be embarrassed, or be annoyed. I promise I’ll meet you halfway. I promise to </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>meet you halfway. Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It sounds like he’s making a vow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise me?” Sora whispers. “Promise you’ll tell me? When I hurt you? When I ask?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…promise,” Riku says, voice hoarse, and it sounds like he’s sealing the vow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sora smiles at him, and Riku tries to place it. He goes through his mental catalogue of Sora-smiles, trying to match it to one of the many emotions he’s seen on Sora’s face over the years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he comes up empty. This one’s new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This one’s for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He grabs Sora and tugs him close, curling around him until he can feel as much of him as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As often as they’ve done this—curled up around each other before going to sleep—it should feel normal. But it doesn’t feel normal. It feels new, and exciting, and perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, Riku thinks as he drops off, he’d never liked normal much anyways. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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